


Less Than Feathers

by kijitsune



Category: Hetalia - Fandom, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Multi, Nyotalia, Romano the prima ballerina, boss chef Spain, featuring Belarus the angsty teenager, in a Second World War Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-10-22 15:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 41,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10700190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijitsune/pseuds/kijitsune
Summary: Paris, Autumn 1938. Austrian music prodigy Sophia and her Prussian companion Julchen somehow land jobs playing and composing music at one of the most internationally famed ballet schools, and slowly immerse themselves into their new lives as social Parisienne butterflies, meeting the insufferable Lovino and his very much sufferable 'friend' Antonio, and befriending the prima ballerina Francine and enduring her listless soliloquys over her admiration for the English university student with bushy brows and messy hair. Of course, all the while under the lavender eyed judgement of secretive Belarusian ballerina Natalya. Things seem brilliant, until the outbreak of war..





	1. Chapter 1 - Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction uses Humanverse! All characters are human, and go by their human names.
> 
> This fanfiction also uses Nyotalia, so some characters are genderbent.
> 
> \--> Guide; [to their names and ages in this fanfiction]
> 
> Belarus, Natalya Arlovskaya, 16.  
> Austria, Sophia Edelstein, 18.  
> Prussia, Julchen 'Juls' Beilschmidt, 18.  
> France, Francine Bonnefoy, 17.  
> England, Arthur Kirkland, 18.  
> South Italy, Lovino Vargas, 18.  
> Spain, Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, 20.  
> Russia, Ivan Braginsky, 19.  
> North Italy, Feliciano Vargas, 16.  
> Canada, Matthew Williams, 17.  
> Germany, Monica Beilschmidt, 15.
> 
> This fanfiction does not contain smut. It will contain fluff, such as kisses, hugs etc. The ultimate outcome of this was for me to try and attempt something at least vaguely angsty, so I hope that works. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Prologue and first few chapters will be shorter than the rest of them, as I'll need to get into the swing of writing things, and the action doesn't start until midway through!

Paris, France. Autumn, 1938. A prestigious evening party of benefactors, dancers and associates of a ballet school.

Prologue

"So, do you dance, Miss Sophia?"

Sophia Edelstein wrinkled up her nose at the mere mention of dance, and shot a haughty bespectacled glare towards her questioner. Sophia didn't dance not because she didn't want to, but because she simply couldn't. For one, she was as clumsy as anything, and got breathless easily. So she had taken up piano instead, and it had turned out, surprisingly, she was rather good at it.

"No." Sophia replied, not meaning to be rude or abrupt, but really just trying to reply whilst keeping watch on the vivacious white-haired Prussian attacking a long line of champagne flutes. Honestly, she couldn't take her anywhere. The party, which she hadn't really wanted to attend, was beginning to make Sophia's head spin, and she adjusted her glasses with an exhausted sigh. 

"Then what brings you here? Do you have a stake in the school? Or do you have associates here who invited you?" Sophia was plagued further, and she turned, resting her violet gaze on her questioner. She was roughly the same age as Sophia, though shorter. Her golden brown hair was tied up in a bun and fixed with a ribbon, and she was wearing a pretty purple dress. Sophia was wearing a long black pinafore with a plain lace-rimmed blouse beneath. Dressing up was not something she did even for events such as this, though somehow she managed to look immaculate and classy. 

"I'm a pianist. I was invited here after I received a request from the insititute to compose music for an upcoming performance." Sophia murmured wanly.

"The insititute?"

"This school."

"Ah. Makes sense. The school hasn't had much new material recently in the way of music - the go-to composer for our performances used to be a little known musician called Mr Archambault, and then Mr Archambault die-"

"I know." Sophia said, wincing from the words the other girl had used. It wasn't as if Sophia was known in the music industry at all, let alone little known.

The girl who had been asking the questions - Francine Bonnefoy - looked put out for a moment. Then she rolled her eyes. "Cat got your tongue? Well, maybe the cat hasn't got your eyes. Which one are you looking out for?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Sophia asked, her tone abrasive and sharp. Francine smirked. "I'm sure you know what I mean. Which gentleman here has caught your attention? You keep looking off."

Sophia didn't really want to tell her that the reason her gaze was wandering was that she was trying to mind the tipsy Prussian who was stationed right next to the canapés' table. 

"I'm not looking at anyone. I'm not interested." Sophia answered, and fiddled with her golden wristwatch. 

"Really? But there's such a selection here! Tell you what, I've got my sight set on that one. You see him? Messy blond hair, getting a bit long, unmissable emerald green eyes. No jacket, just a shirt and a waistcoat and the most fitted trousers I've ever seen - and good heavens, my weakness, his shirt sleeves are rolled up. You must know who I mean now?"

But by the time Francine had concluded her flirtatiously impassioned speech, Sophia had gone. Her hand was clamped around Juls' - that was the tipsy Prussian girl's name - hand. "Stop it, you'll make yourself sick." Sophia hissed, and Juls simply fixed her glittering albino red eyes on the Austrian. 

"You can't get sick off of sublimity, my friend. Here, try one. It says it's some shit like quail's eggs - what is a quail? - but it's good." Juls murmured, trying to thrust a tartlet into Sophia's mouth. 

Sophia flailed, and knocked the tartlet out of Juls' pale grip. "Don't use such obscenities in public! This is our workplace!" She reprimanded her, and guests close by to them raised an eyebrow and tutted amongst themselves. 

"Maybe we should go home." Sophia decided, taking in Juls, who's hair was out of place and she looked weary. 

Juls sneered. "And what is home? The shitty little studio we rent out now? We should never have left Vienna."

There was an element of truth in what Juls was saying. 

"There isn't anything more for us in Vienna. And we ought to give Paris a better chance. We've been here two weeks." Sophia paused. "After all, you didn't have to come with me."

Juls looked sulky. "Yes I did. You'd have been lost without me." Sophia exhaled deeply. Juls had been a childhood friend, who'd come to live in Vienna in a neighbouring house to Sophia when the two of them were seven or eight. At first, it'd been hard to settle their differences, but Juls had had her heart set on winning over Sophia as a friend, and eventually, she did. Not a lot had changed since then.

"Julchen Beilschmidt, I think you'd better listen to me." Sophia murmured, resorting to using Juls' full name to garner her attention. "We'll be taking our leave. It's nearly eleven o' clock, and it's pitch black outside." 

Julchen stuck out her tongue. 

"Fine. It's not like I was enjoying myself anyway. Everyone here is too posh and prim and snooty. I don' like it." She hissed, her albino red eyes glittering. "It was your decision to come, so I don't know why you're the one telling us to leave. Aren't you having a good time? What about your lady friend you left over there?" She chided further, smiling a little, a flash of her teeth showing.

Sophia always exhausted herself talking to Juls. It was really just wasting energy even trying to spark a somewhat dignified conversation. Juls was mischievous and childish and far too lively for her own good, and always ended up either showing Sophia up or attracting disgusted looks. That, or just decreasing Sophia's will to live to absolutely nought. The only reason she'd even allowed Juls to come was because Juls could play violin, and that way, the duo could more easily offer more skills to an employer. And it had worked, because after only a morning of milling round the city of love, they'd landed themselves some work. 

"Why are you so annoyed about leaving? I doubt you want to stay." Sophia replied, raising an eyebrow. Juls shrugged. "They've got good food. This is Paris, Soph. And we can't afford proper Paris food. This is all for free." 

Normally, Sophia would have slapped Juls harder than she could piano slam for calling her that, but instead she sighed. "If you really want to stay, I'll try and amuse myself for another ten minutes. But ten minutes. That's all, understand. Comprendre?" 

Juls nodded, victorious. "Oui, comprendre, mademoiselle." 

Sophia hesitated. "Juls, you haven't.. met someone here, have you?"

Juls snorted. "What man would fall for me, idiot. Plus, who'd want a snarky Frenchman for a boyfriend? Not me, that's for sure. No, I'm just scoping out who's here to talk to, you know, in town, and stuffing my face with canapés. Maybe that's what you should be doing. Meeting people. Boys, I mean." 

Sophia nodded, and looked away. "I didn't think you would have. You'll never get anyone, French or not." She commented, and Juls shrugged again. 

****

Francine held up her trailing skirts as she tried to make her way through the swarms of guests that littered the ballroom floor, desperate to get a word in with her messy haired gentleman she'd been spying on. Out of the corner of her peripheral vision, she noticed Natalya, who had recently joined the school from Belarus. She had a lot of potential, but was certainly a challenge to talk to. Her hair was so light it was almost silver, and her eyes were a veiled mist. If you could get a word out of her, she'd generally tell you to 'go away' - or words to that effect. Nobody was even particularly sure if 'Natalya Arlovskaya' was her real name.

Natalya wasn't really bothered about the party, or much. The only reason she'd started ballet was because her older brother was so very fond of it, and she was so very fond of her older brother. Really, she didn't care one bit about ballet, or that she was actually decently good at it. Francine had tried to talk to her, to pass the time of day, just little things like 'I like your pointe shoes!' Or 'You're fluent in Russian, Belarusian and English?!' Natalya, in a rather lame excuse of a response, would speak monosyllabically, her apathy gleaming. Really, there wasn't any point. This hadn't discouraged Francine, though. But disintegrating Natalya's barricades wasn't Francine's priority tonight. No, the eyebrows in a waistcoat was. 

She exhaled, fixed her hair, and closed her eyes, whilst calculating what witty remark she'd strike up a conversation with.

"Miss? Are you about to faint? Your eyes have been closed for a minute now." The voice sounded from right next to Francine, and when she opened her eyes, she felt like closing them again, and actually fainting. For looking at her with the warmest gaze she'd ever seen was the messy haired gentleman. His eyes were even greener up close, and they were hinted with worry.

"No, no. I'm fine, thank you sir." She whispered, not taking her eyes off of him. He nodded. "Are you sure? You're a dancer, if you were to pass out and hit your leg on the floor.."

"How did you know I dance?"

"You're here at a party at a dance school. Your frame is delicate, and most of the benefactors here are middle aged men. So I decided you weren't a benefactor." He murmured, his voice low and articulate, which she decided both matched perfectly and not at all with him. Up close, he looked young and fresh and still like a child almost with his cheeks and his slim figure. Yet he was obviously a late teenager, Francine's own age perhaps. A student, surely.

"You're very clever. I'm not. I'm a complete and utter airhead." Francine burbled, yet somehow seeming comtrastingly composed in stature.

"I'm positive that's not true." He replied, sticking his hands absent-mindedly in his pockets.

"Modesty is always the way to charm a girl," Francine laughed a little, and saw the corners of his lips quirk into an amused smirk. 

"Well, before I go on charming you, may I ask what your name is? It wouldn't do to have you completely smitten with me and I can't even tell my mother your name." He prompted, and Francine felt her heart skip a beat.

"Francine. Francine Bonnefoy." She declared, beaming. 

"I'm Arthur, Arthur Kirkland. I'm here studying journalism." He introduced himself in return, and in the background, Natalya made a face.

Natalya wasn't bothered about anything, least of all the myth to her that was love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophia gets jealous, and a slightly flirty Italian takes the duo to a failing Spanish deli..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this is somewhat long enough, or at least, a decent length. Long chapters have never been my forte, so to speak. But I hope you enjoy! I'm planning for the first few chapters to be relatively uneventful, but I assure you there is a plotline. Whether it ends up angsty or not is up to my writing skills..

"Seize the day, Sophia. We've got a nice, long schedule today of playing music for brats in leotards." Juls laughed, yanking open the curtains, and letting the dim early morning light splash into their shared bedroom. Sophia squinted in the harsh light, and reached over to her nightstand, groping around in an effort to locate her glasses. Juls' bed was made horribly, the blanket slipping off of it, the sheets crumpled, but she was dressed, and full of inextinguishable enthusiasm. 

Sophia was not a morning person in comparison.

"You probably shouldn't call them brats," Sophia slurred, still in a sleepy delirium.

"It's not like they're going to hear. The school is a full five minutes away on foot, if not more." Juls replied, gazing out of the window whilst brushing her long, thin white hair. "And they are brats. Admittance to that school doesn't come cheaply." 

"It's not like your family is poor, Julchen. Your father is a doctor, your mother a writer, and your house back in Vienna isn't small. You and Monica didn't grow up in in squalor, to say the least." 

Juls rolled her eyes. "The house isn't big at all, Soph. Also, that's rich coming from you. Your house there is bloody massive." 

Sophia dropped the topic. "Shut up and get your violin. Are there any breakfast ingredients? Or are we going to starve?" 

"Don't be so dramatic, piano girl." Juls replied. "There's bread and butter. Sorry if that's not up to scratch, aristocrat." 

Sophia wrinkled up her nose. "Why haven't you got a hangover? I didn't see you without a glass of wine in your hand all evening. I can hear your liver screaming." The Austrian shot back, tying up the ribbon of her blouse. 

"Guess it's just my awesome Prussian genes." Juls said smugly, a twinkle in her eyes which had always, ever since they were children, irritated Sophia more than anything else, even more than out of tune pianos. 

"Yeah, well, one day you'll be in a coma because of your stupid beer addiction." Sophia decided, slipping on some shoes and exiting the room, Juls hot on her heels. "Think I'm addicted? You should see Monica. Barely fifteen and she can down a pint faster than you can call a pianist out on missing a note." Juls' younger sister Monica was of few words, a stoic and burly girl even taller than Juls was, with short blonde hair and the type of masculine figure that made the town thugs quake. But she was kind, if slightly intimidating. And very intelligent. Far more so than Julchen was at any rate.

Their studio, the three room affair with a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen with a small living room was at the top of one of Paris' eclectic yet falling down buildings, with a long winding staircase inside that always rendered Sophia doubled over at the bottom, gasping for air. Juls would give her a playful kick in the shin, and then the two would make their way towards the school, and it was felt so odd to them, they decided, that they entered the school not as pupils, but as musicians. They both were now eighteen, and they had finished off school three months ago, in July. Neither of their parents had posed an objection to the girls beginning careers in France, so that was precisely what the two had done. 

"Miss Edelstein, the drawing room - that's the room with the grand piano - is unlocked for you," Sophia nodded, still feeling peculiar over being referred to in such a manner. She'd have preferred to have started her composing work in the comfort of her studio home, but there wasn't a desk, and after all, she needed to know the choreography of the actual dance she was composing for, so she was to work at the school, tucked away in the drawing room.

The drawing room was always an unfamiliar display of grandeur to Sophia as she let Juls and herself in. Some of the music she was to play was to be some light, slow melodies, and others far more melodramatic pieces. Personally, she preferred drama. More fun to play. After all, an extra piano slam with a dramatic piece could never go amiss.

****

"Nice work. It must be lunch time now, it feels like mid-afternoon," Juls complained. Not that she had much to complain about - Sophia had been doing all the work whilst she lay stretched out on one of the suede sofas, plucking grapes from a bowl on the gilt coffee table. Some of the grapes she'd eat, some she'd aim at Sophia. 

The Austrian turned around in her chair, her glasses flashing at Juls, which always shut her up. "It's hardly even twelve, but we can call this our lunch hour if we must. I'm sure we can find a nice delicatessen somewhere, after all, like you said, this is Paris."

Juls rolled her eyes. "Deli, Soph. Who calls it a delicatessen?"

"People who speak properly, that's who. In fact, you could probably afford to take a leaf out of my book when it comes to speaking, Julchen Beilschmidt." Sophia hissed, and Juls winced.

"Don't. You sound just like my mother. Actually no, worse." Juls murmured, getting up from the sofa and nudging the door open with her foot.

"Good. Also, might I remind you, don't call me that." Sophia grunted, and Juls smirked. It was an instant way to annoy the Austrian.

Descending the stairs, the pair passed the main practice room, simplistic in its cream walls, yet pretty in an understated manner with its pillars in each corner. Inside was a sole dancer, a boy their age, perhaps a year younger, perhaps a year older. His hair was dark auburn, and one curl just wouldn't lie flat. He was dressed in a wispy white shirt and shorts, and was taking off some ballet shoes. 

"Hey, Sophia, he's handsome." Juls whispered, and Sophia blinked. She could tell he was good looking but.. She nodded subtly. "He looks like he's finishing up. Why don't you go and talk to him," she probed, smiling a little.

Juls was so oblivious.

The Prussian nodded, and flicked her long silvery hair, before entering the room, her hands behind her back nonchalantly.

"Whatcha doing?" She asked, her eyes bright. Up close, his features were golden and sun kissed, and his hair fell in luscious curls around his face. 

"Oh, I've just been practicing some things for a performance. Nothing complicated. And you, signorina, mademoiselle?" His voice had a thick Italian lilt, and his eyes were playful, yet incredibly charming.

She grinned. "Try 'fräulein." I'm Prussian. I'm a composer, but it's about as interesting as watching paint dry. This looks much more fun," She commented, smirking a little.

"Okay then, Fräulein. Composer, eh? Nice. Say, what is a pretty Prussian girl like you doing in these parts?"

"Composing. I'm a composer."

"You should have said." He grinned, his warm eyes glinting. "I'm done here.. and it's midday.." He gesticulated. "What do you say to us two taking a little walk and getting some lunch?" 

Juls feigned heartbreak. "I'd love to, but I'm stuck with my accomplice over there." She said, pointing to behind her, where Sophia stood, leaning against the door.

"Hey, that's no problem! I'm an Italian, the more women, the better!" He laughed heartily. "No, but seriously, I'll take you both out, it's on me. I know a little Spanish place down in the suburbs, not far from here. You can call me Lovino." 

Juls smiled, and the two approached Sophia, who raised an eyebrow. "Got yourself a date? Thanks for the ditch." She hissed, folding her arms.

"Ah, no no. I will take you both out. It's.. how do I say it.. my treat." Lovino said, fiddling with some string near the neck of his shirt. "What can I call you two lovely ladies?"

"Juls, it's short for Julchen. I hate it." Juls offered, beaming. Sophia glared at Lovino. "My name is Sophia, and under no circumstances will you shorten it." She announced.

"Ah, don't be so critical. Julchen is a lovely name. Fits you perfectly." Lovino purred, before smiling at Sophia, who looked like thunder embodied. "And Sophia is a wonderful name too." He complimented, but Sophia didn't seem to care. Her eyes didn't leave Lovino, and not in the way Juls' eyes didn't leave Lovino.

Something about the Italian annoyed Sophia, deeply. But she couldn't put her finger on it, and she was too well brought up to point it out even if she knew what it was. 

Throughout the cobbled streets of Paris, Juls was almost hanging off of Lovino's arm, Sophia dawdling a few feet behind. Under her breath she would hum a song, generally an old piece of classical piano music. After a while, the trio reached a tucked away little shop, with tables and chairs and crates of bread stacked outside. Inside the walls were a faded yellow, and art of bulls and pretty ladies in black and red adorned them. Hing from the ceiling were chorizo, cecina, salchichon, any number of Iberian meat. And sitting on the actual counter, reading, was a tanned man, slightly older than Sophia, dressed in a loose shirt and trousers, with dark brown curls and energetic eyes. When he saw Lovino, he leapt off of the counter and sprinted out to greet him. 

"Hey, Lovi! Nice for you to visit me! And customers! Aah, customers. I've missed them." He smiled, and brought Lovino into his form for a hug. 

"Get your hands off of me, bastard. I've got company."

The man smiled nevertheless, and looked Juls and Sophia up and down. "Are you really real? My goodness, I haven't had customers in such a long time! What would you like? You can have anything you want! Well, anything I sell. From my menu! Hold on, let me show you two the menu!" Lovino rolled his eyes at the café's owner. "That's Antonio. This is his deli and it is a flop."

Juls was surprised how quickly Lovino's personality changed depending on whether he was talking to a man or a woman, but shrugged it off. To her at least, he was incredibly charming. And Antonio didn't seem to mind.

Sophia decided on meatballs, Spanish of course, with bread, and Lovino offered to share paella with Juls, who seemed pleased at the prospect. Antonio was surprisingly speedy chef, considering he chatted to the three of them for the duration of the time their food was cooking. 

"I've known Lovino for a long time, ever since I first came to Paris with my grandfather ten years ago," Antonio reminisced, cutting off a hunk of bread and smiling at the nostalgia. "Of course my grandfather is dead now, and I'm grown up. He left me the shop he started up. Eight or so years ago, it was a success. But people don't seem to come to this part of the city anymore. That, or nobody has any money these days. Doesn't surprise me, what Germany is doing will affect us all."

Juls blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Not what the country is doing - what it's government is doing. Making advances on Poland, Czechoslovakia, even us in France. I tell you, nothing good is coming of this." Antonio murmured, cutting off a portion of butter and placing down Sophia's, who was the last to get served, food. 

"But enough of that, eh? Let me sing to you. Sing of better times." He smiled, and pulled out a crate to sit on, and from behind the counter he retrieved a guitar. 

Antonio's voice was mellow and strong, and warm and cosy and rich. His face lit up, and it was evident in the young man's face, who was really barely an adult, that he yearned for happiness, and when he looked at Lovino, even if only briefly, his eyes looked as if they'd found that happiness. 

People like Antonio were never hard to please.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clichê, but begins character development. If you stick with this fanfiction even after this chapter I'll cry ngl

"Second position. And Francine, please stop waving to Natalya. She's obviously not going to wave back." The ballet instructor was aged and grey, her limbs wiry and weathered. She'd taught at the school for as long as anyone could remember, and had a large affinity for sarcasm. When questioned on it, she simply stated that if she wasn't so sarcastic, the school would have long ago sent her insane. 

Natalya was positioned at the back of the room, barely visible in the wide wall mounted mirror. Her gaze was cold and icy, but this hadn't deterred Francine, who was at the front. Before Natalya had arrived, Francine had been something of a star in the school, looked up to the most by the younger pupils, and despised for her talent by her peers. But now Natalya was here, and it was almost insulting to the Belarusian's skill to be compared to Francine. As far as the teachers were concerned, there was nothing more ballet school could teach her, and really she should have been sent in to the wild world of ballet to debut her gift in the practice. But as her older brother and sister was paying such a fortune to send her here, nobody had the audacity to complain. It would have defied logic, really.

Apart from thinking about somehow by some feat of nature eventually befriending Natalya, Francine's mind was wandering. Just two days ago, she'd met someone who'd made everything a tad topsy-turvy. She hadn't communicated with her messy blond haired English gentleman since their encounter, but they had exchanged addresses, so she could write to him. And he was studying in the area, so chances were, she'd end up bumping into him. That thought alone was tantalising.

As the lesson dispersed and she wrapped herself in a large white woollen shawl, she placed a hand on Natalya's shoulder. "Great work today." Francine murmured, and Natalya's eyebrows knitted. 

"What are you doing telling me something like that? I appreciate the encouragement, but I'd rather it if you didn't talk to me. Go and kiss your big-browed boyfriend or something." She said, not short of jumping down Francine's throat.

Francine felt wounded for a second, before blushing. "He's not my boyfriend, you don't know what you're talking about," she said coyly, but not really angry about it.

"Could I care less? Listen, I'm not in the market to be your friend. I'm not here to make friends." Natalya finally remarked curtly after a long pause. 

Francine smiled. "I get it. You're shy. I'll win you over. You don't have to be scared of me, okay?" She said beaming, flicking a flyaway ringlet out of her eyes.

Natalya jumped back in disgust. "What? Please, stop harassing me! I'm not scared of you! I hate you! I can't think of anyone I'd want to be friends with less!" The light haired girl then pivoted and left the room in an angry rage, and Francine's eyes widened, upset.

"Did I do something wrong?" She whispered to herself as the room emptied, and she was left the only one in there. 

"No, you didn't." 

This voice came from behind Francine, and she turned round, curious. Standing in the opening of one of the entrances to the room was Sophia, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, her eyes kind behind her glasses. 

"My quiet friend from the party!" Francine exclaimed, her face radiant with surprise. "Miss Edelstein, correct?" 

Sophia shook her head. "Sophia, please. Clearly she just got out of the wrong side of bed this morning. You didn't do a thing wrong, as far as I can tell." Sophia impressed onto Francine, who smiled weakly.

"I don't know. It seems like not many people want to be friends with me. I've attended this school since I was nine, and my circle of friends changes all the time. Right about now I've got no one." She said softly, blinking at Sophia. "It doesn't matter though. I debut my work as a soloist ballerina next Autumn, when I'm eighteen, so I won't be here much longer." 

"Then we're in the same boat. I'm only working here temporarily, my composing was commissioned for this performance season. I'll probably just do work playing music in bars or restaurants after this." Sophia explained. "I don't see why you have such a hard time making friends, you seem perfectly lovely to me." She paused, taking off her spectacles and cleaning them with the hem of her skirt. "I only have one friend, Juls. And I have to be friends with her, because our parents are friends." 

Francine cocked her head. "You don't have a man-friend? A pretty girl like you?" 

Sophia shook her head. "I'm not pretty, and even if I were, my personality is no match. I suppose music is my friend, too." She didn't want to talk on the subject of boys much longer. Somehow she never envisioned herself with a husband.

Francine laughed a little. "That's so cute. Ballet is my friend, then. And maybe.. maybe Arthur is also my friend." She looked at her feet. "I haven't spoken to him since the night of the party, though."

Sophia put two and two together, and guessed Arthur was the boy Francine had been studying so intently. "I think that's fine. I wouldn't talk to Julchen for a year if I could, and she'd probably still consider herself my best friend for all eternity. Friendship is weird like that." She focused on Francine's face. "Arthur would be stupid if he didn't want to be your friend, if you know what I mean." 

Francine blushed again, this time more intensely. "Miss Edelste--Sophia, I might hug you for saying that." She said, before bolting at Sophia, and pulling her into an embrace. Still hugging her, Francine whispered into her shoulder: "Maybe you're one of my friends too?" 

Sophia smiled very small as they pulled apart, and Sophia never smiled much. "I'd like that. Would you like to be one of my friends?" 

"I hardly think a one sided friendship is the way to go." Francine chuckled, before sighing. "I don't know what to do about Arthur though."

"Do you know where to find him?" Sophia queried, and Francine nodded. "I've only met him the once, here, but he gave me his university's address." 

"Then you know exactly what to do!"

****

Francine changed from her white leotard and stockings and dressed herself properly in the dormitory for the oldest students, and then splashed water on her cheeks, summoning up any courage she had, which wasn't a lot. Francine wasn't the bravest. Arachnophobic, scared of the dark, of the sea, of conflict, of most things. But Arthur was someone she wanted to brave for, even if brave only was going to his university dorm to say hello, and maybe to go for a walk.

That was very brave to Francine. She wasn't shy, just scared.

To be honest, she'd never pictured herself ever having a boyfriend - her lack of luck with keeping friends had discouraged her from ever dreaming she would have one.

But that didn't mean she wasn't willing to try. She was anxious, of course, even about just going to have a little chat with him. Suppose he'd never thought of her as his potential girlfriend, for all he'd hinted at trying to charm her? Maybe he'd been teasing her, humouring her just for the sheer fun?

Whatever he was doing, she'd rather know then face the trepidation of being kept in the dark. After all, she was afraid of darkness.

She almost felt herself running down some of the streets, such was the excitement of going to visit Arthur. She hardly knew him, yet she was enchanted. Hardly spoken to him, but captivated by every word he uttered. 

The university was a large building, with huge pillars and gargoyles around the slitted castle-esque windows. Her step was quick, her pace infallibly fast. She'd almost reached the top of the stairs when she heard a "Francine?"

She looked up - before her, just coming out of the front reception was Arthur. This time, instead of a suit, he was wearing plain trousers and a huge navy jersey with his shirt showing underneath it from where it wasn't tucked in. His hair was tousled, a mess, but his eyes were friendly, and somehow she preferred this version to the version she'd seen at the party.

"Arthur! I.. I was coming to visit you. Did I choose a bad time?" 

"No, not at all. I was only going out to a bookshop, and I can do that any day. What was it.... What was it you wanted?"

"Just to see you." Francine whispered, before mentally kicking herself. Why would she say that? They barely knew each other!

Arthur looked humbled, and looked at his feet to try and hide his face, but Francine had already seen he was blushing.

"Really? That's.. that's incredibly kind of you. Thank you." He smiled. "We should probably get off of the stairs before we create an obstruction. You can have some tea on the balcony of my room? I'm afraid that's all I can offer in the way of hosting." He said shyly, and Francine tried to stifle a girly giggle.

"That would be rather wonderful, Monsieur Kirkland," she laughed, and he rolled his eyes. "I wish I could be impressing you by conversing in French to you, but my spoken French is utterly awful. That's why I'm a journalism student and not a linguistics one." 

Francine wanted to outstretch her hand to interlock it with his, but even she knew that was a bit forward. "You're impressing me enough as it is," she said inaudibly, so Arthur didn't hear.

The two scaled a staircase and bypassed a few students before Arthur halted outside his door. "I share this room with my roommate Ivan, and he's a little scary, but truly a nice person." He explained, but Francine couldn't care less, she was with Arthur.

Ivan did end up seeming truly terrifying upon her first sight of him, with his face hidden away into a large pale pink scarf, and his towering height compared to Francine's, which wasn't usually too diminutive in comparison to others', but to Ivan's it most certainly was. 

But just as Arthur said, he turned out be perfectly nice.

The three sat out on the balcony, which was covered with roses, drinking tea. It wasn't until Ivan mentioned that he had a younger sister who did ballet, that Francine put two and two together. Older. Russian accent. Clearly had a little bit of money to be educated to this standard. 

"I-Ivan.. is your sister by any chance Natalya Arlovskaya?" Francine finally blurted, staring at her cup of tea.

Ivan looked taken aback, before his jaw dropped. "How did you know that? Do you read minds?"

"Of course she doesn't read minds. The French aren't magic." Arthur joked, before nodding slightly to himself. "I'll bet the reason Francine knows who your sister is is because they attend the same school."

Ivan still seemed surprised. "Are you friends with her, then? I'm sure she has lots of friends."

Francine allowed herself to laugh a little at the irony.

"Actually.. no. I've tried, honestly. But she's very.. very shy? Closed? No interest in friends, that's for certain." 

Ivan looked concerned. "Really? She's not socialising?" He stammered, before almost engraving his gaze into his own cup of tea.

"Magic. Try talking to her about magic." He then decided, looking up and meeting Francine's eyes. Francine exchanged a glance with Arthur, whose own eyes had lit up.

"I know about magic! I.. I've always loved faeries and myths and whatnot." He blushed, worried Francine would think his hobby stupid. 

Ivan smiled. "I think I've got a lecture on soon, so I'll have to take my leave. But.." he hesitated. "Please look after my little sister for me." He asked, before exiting the room. Francine stared out on the cityscape, at the darkening sky and at the amber sunset. The balcony felt so special, like a tiny world atop the huge bustling city of romance.

"I can tell you about magic so you know what to say to her?" Arthur offered, and Francine didn't reply for a long moment. "You would?" Francine echoed, and of course, he nodded. Clichê, but to Francine, befriending Natalya seemed like a very important thing to do, and after all, listening to people talk about something they're passionate about is always one of the cutest things ever.

And so Arthur spent the evening explaining to Francine about fairy rings and about hexes and jinxes and witches and castles and familiars. 

But what was most magical of all was when Francine decided she'd ought to leave, Arthur brought her face close to his, and kissed her. It was messy and nervous and it felt like a teenager kiss - which is what it was - but it was a kiss and it was out of the blue and it was magic.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I promise I did not friendzone PruAus, it will become romantic! And we see a little more Spamano in this chapter. I guess we can mark this chapter or the next as some of the last 'nice' or 'uneventful' ones. We'll see. I'm aiming for this fanfiction to be a decent size, so I'm guessing there will be around 22 chapters. That's quite a bit of time for some angst to kick in, huh?

"You know I won't always live here. Paris, I mean." The Italian's voice was abrupt, breaking the moment.

"I know that, Lovi. I've known that since I began to love you. France isn't your home, Italy is. But you know what else, Lovino? Your home is my home."

Lovino turned round to face Antonio, whose olive complexion was highlighted and hued an ethereal white in the twilight. The two lay on the roof on top of Antonio's deli, and the town surrounding them was still, perfectly tranquil.

"I feel like you second guess everything I say." Lovino pouted.

"That's only because I know you so well. No bad thing." Antonio chuckled lowly, before outstretching his arms. "Come here." He whispered, and Lovino didn't object as he pulled himself into Antonio's clasp.

"You're going to be the best dancer in Europe. First stop, Rome?" Antonio hinted, stroking Lovino's hair.

"No I won't, bastard. There are far better dancers than me. Even you know that." Lovino protested, but Antonio subsided him with a quick kiss. 

"Okay, maybe not the best dancer in Europe. The best dancer in the world, then!" Antonio would not sink to pessimism. Not around Lovino, at least. 

"Shut up. You don't know anything about ballet." Lovino remarked, and Antonio began to tickle his neck, sending Lovino into chuckles as he writhed in the Spaniard's grip. 

"That might be true, but I know everything about you." Antonio declared, and Lovino exhaled softly. "You say that, but.."

"But what?"

"But nothing. Forget I said anything, tomato." Lovino decided, and closed his eyes. 

"Sleepy?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"You're supposed to be back at the school by now. I should take you back." Antonio fretted, loosening his grip on Lovino. "I forget how young you are," the Spaniard added, "How innocent, too." 

Lovino turned round in Antonio's arms to face him, and raised an eyebrow. "Me, Lovino Vargas, innocent?" He laughed, before noticing that Antonio's face was deadly serious.

"If you go back to Italy.. you know the politics there, right?" Antonio asked, trying to avoid eye contact with Lovino, as if that would make the discussion easier.

"You don't need to watch out for me, okay? I'll be fine.." The Italian trailed off when he saw the flash of dejection displayed on Antonio's face. "What were you going to say?" He questioned, his heart beginning to pound. If he was honest, he didn't really know what was going on in the world at all, except from people talking about a war, and about Germany and Poland and Italy and Czechoslovakia and Russia and Britain. It got tiring to hear after a while, so he'd zoned out completely.

"You know they're allied with Germany? With Hitler?"

Lovino furrowed his brow. "But they're the good guys, right? They're gonna bring Europe to an era of success?" 

Antonio opened his mouth and then closed it again. He so wanted to sugarcoat it for Lovino, for the one person he had alive to love.

"I don't want to influence you. You deserve your own political autonomy." Antonio decided, but Lovino didn't look convinced. "I'd rather you told me if my country was being utterly dumb, Toni." 

Lovino rarely referred to Antonio as anything other than 'bastard' or 'tomato' to his face when it was exclusively the pair of them. 

"I'm so worried, Lovino. I'm so worried there's going to be a war and we'll lose everything. Both of us were born in the aftermath of the Great War. Lovi, that ripped apart countries. That tore things to tatters."

"And it's going to happen again?"

"Probably. I don't know. Yes, I know." Antonio stammered, his eyes welling up. "No, this is stupid, we've got to stay optimistic," he then hissed to himself, and Lovino felt his heart crumble.

"If there's a war, will you have to fight?" Lovino asked, his sparky, snarky persona crestfallen.

"Yes. No. Maybe." Antonio shook his head, he didn't want to answer questions he couldn't.

"But you're Spanish?"

"I'm a citizen of France." Antonio whispered back, closing his eyes for a moment to fight back tears.

"Toni?"

"Yes?"

"Will I have to fight?" Lovino's voice was quivering, he felt like a child. 

Antonio didn't say anything for a full two minutes. 

"I hope not."

****

Morning broke hazy and warm, and Sophia felt a renewed spring in her step as she entered the school, her hair tumbling down her back, her shoes falling out an awkward staccato as she ran through the large front doors, Juls a few yards behind.

The first part of the performance's music was composed, and now there was only a main piece for the second, an ending, and some dramatic ostinatos to top it off. She even smiled at Juls when the two met eyes.

"Did you buy bread?"

"No, of course I didn't. Why would I remember to do that?" Juls answered, brutally honest. 

"Did you remember to say 'hi' to your Italian sweetheart?"

"Ew, he's not my sweetheart. I bet he flirts with every girl he meets."

Juls wrinkled up her nose at Sophia's inquisition. Sophia meanwhile, scanned the corridors for a certain French brunette ballerina. 

She did actually see Francine, but this time, with a very slight silver haired girl hanging off of her arm.

"-And so if you want to use cobwebs as a substitute ingredient to silk for the spell, you coul-" Francine broke off her sentence. "Good morning Sophia!" She smiled brightly. Her silvery friend glared, which Sophia took to be her own kind of greeting. 

Julchen made eye contact with Sophia, before mouthing "Who's that?"

Sophia shook her head. "Hello, Francine." Francine looked golden, her eyes full of life, her hair freshly curled, her very being a mess of positivity. "Sophia, this is my new friend Natalya. We were talking about magic." Upon closer inspection, Sophia finally recognised Natalya as the rather brutal in her refusal of friendship girl from yesterday. 

"..Magic?" Sophia asked, before noticing that Francine and Natalya were off again, walking instep with each other back down the corridor. She rolled her eyes, although she was pleased, before disappearing up the stairs with Juls following.

"She's not your new best friend, is she? I mean, that's fine. I think you'll have a lot of fun together" The Prussian asked, trying to appear as if she didn't care, when it was so obvious she did.

"Julchen Beilschmidt, after one decade of knowing you, do you really think I'm backing out of our idiotic friendship now?"

Juls shrugged, fiddling with her wrists. "People change. People come and go." 

Sophia sighed, feigning exasperation. "Juls, you're my best friend. You. I am best friends with Julchen Beilschmidt - there, I've self proclaimed it now. It's a confession. You are my one and only best friend, amiga." 

Juls smiled smugly. "I knew it. It's not like I minded though."

"No no, of course you didn't." The corners of Sophia's mouth were tugging into a smile. 

"And you can have a new best friend anytime you want," Juls added, for good measure, to emphasise her apathy of course.

Sophia thought hard. "Maybe I could find a new best friend, but not a new companion. Not a new accomplice, kindred spirit, sidekick. Maybe I could find a new best friend."


	5. Chapter 5 - Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> February - April 1939. Austria has been occupied since last March. Ivan is incredibly worried for Natalya's safety, more worried than he conveys. Lovino is subtly protective of his relationship with Antonio, and Julchen starts to figure out that things will start worsening as the year ages.

3rd January, 1939.  
Dearest Natalya,

I hope you are well. I should like to come to see you this week, as I am free this Sunday. I do hope you enjoyed Christmas, even if we were only allowed to return to Russia for such a short week. How is ballet going? Have you been in contact with Yekaterina? I've exchanged a few letters with her, and everything seems well. 

But anyway, I write this with a pressing worry. I'm sure you have been listening to the wireless, but if you haven't, I am going to tell you that things are not very fine with France currently. It was such a foolish idea for me to let you to come here, it just seemed so convenient with me attending university here. I am worried that your safety will not be guaranteed in France in coming months. I haven't decided what to do just yet, but rest assured, I am looking after you.

Lots of love to my dear little sister,  
Ivan.

 

5th January, 1939.  
Ivan, 

What are you worrying about? I don't care for listening to the wireless. If you're suggesting I return to Belarus to live with mama, then I shall. I respect what you say, you know. But if you're going to send me anywhere, I'd rather live with Kat in Ukraine. It was annoying we couldn't see her at Christmas - I miss her.. she is my sister after all.

Ballet is going fine, thank you for asking. The shoes you gifted me at Christmas are lovely, and quite the finest in my class. How are your studies? Also, you are free to visit me this coming Sunday.

Natalya.

 

10th January, 1939.  
Dearest Natalya,

I had a wonderful time with you today. The Seine in the evening is lovely, do you agree? Maybe you will not need to return home, perhaps I was jumping to conclusions. But know I care about you very much, so if anything does happen, well, I'll want you be safe at all costs. Are you making friends? Tell me about them. Here I have met many friends, my closest one named Arthur. I am glad we came to Paris, I suppose. I still believe it can offer us more than Russia, or Belarus or Ukraine does. The school you attend now is well funded, and you will get great connections there to help you truly become a ballerina, if that is what you want. I am looking forward to seeing you dance in the upcoming Spring showcase. I'm sure you will be brilliant. 

Love - Ivan.

 

12th January, 1939.  
Ivan, 

I shall continue ballet if that is what you wish, brother. You know how highly I value your opinion. 

Please, tell me what you mean about keeping me safe. You do not need to go to such extremes, I am just fine. It's not as if I am in imminent danger. You'd tell me if I was in peril, I know that much.

Love Natalya.

PS. There is one girl I talk to and her name is Francine. We're not friends though. I only talk to her every so often to make her stop irritating me.

-  
18th February, 1939.  
Dear Feliciano,

How are you and Grandpa? I trust everything is fine in Italy, whatever this guy Antonio says. How was the harvest? I'm sorry I haven't been in regular contact. Ballet has me so busy. My feet hurt, ballet sucks. Don't do ballet. France is very cold and I'm shivering at night. I'll come back to Italy soon, so expect me. Don't feel too excited. Seriously, I can't wait for decent weather again. It's not only just that it's so cold here, it's unpredictable too. One day the sun will be out like there's no tomorrow, the next day it'll pour. It gets my hopes up only to dash them, and I don't appreciate that. Plus the food here is awful, rumours lie. Italian food is far superior. Oh, and don't eat Spanish food. 

Anyway, what's the dating scene like? Have you got yourself a sweetheart? I'm sure you have. You always stole my girls away when we were younger. Do you know humiliating that was, seeing my girlfriends kiss my little brother instead of me? I'll never forgive you for that. I don't currently have a girlfriend. French girls are stuck up.

Lovino.

 

20th February, 1939.  
Lovino!

How nice to get such an unexpected letter! Thank you! Grandpa was thrilled to hear from you, he's says it's been too long and you've worried him sick. Not sick enough to drop the cigars, though. And you'll really come back? When? I must clean the house for you.. considering I still live at home. No wife for me. No girlfriend, for that matter. 

Why are you eating Spanish food? Did you go to Spain recently? How was it? Lovi, I miss you. And you visited last summer, so it's not like it's been an eternity since I saw you. But you must write more frequently! When you visit I'll introduce you to some of the girls that have moved to the village recently. I'm sure one of them will fall for you, perhaps more than one! 

School is so boring, but I'd rather be at school then farming everyday. Grandpa says he has his sights set on a better career path for me, though what exactly I don't know. I don't really know what I want to do with myself job-wise. You're lucky, you knew you'd be a dancer ever since you were little. I don't know why you're complaining about the weather, we'd kill for some rain over here. It's soooo hot. For winter, that is.

Lots of love,  
Your brother  
Feliciano.

 

26th February, 1939.  
Feli,

What are you on about? No wives! You're sixteen! Concentrate on school, idiot. Seriously. But it's good to hear Grandpa isn't that worse for wear. Don't feel like you have to clean the house for me, I'll just be happy to be home.

There's a small Spanish deli in the suburbs. I mean, it's not actually awful. It's very nice. Did I mention Antonio to you? Yeah, he owns it. He's just a person I know. I'd like some female company, I mean, there's girls here, but they're all ballet girls, and I can't stand them. Well, there's this one albino girl that is arranging music for the showcases and performances and she is top notch, but she's always hanging around with this pompous brunette, so I never get to talk to her. But please, donate some girlfriends to your brother. I am suffering.

You'll figure it out, you're not stupid. But keep up with your studies. Farming is a good enough career. And Feli, remember, you can paint, damnit. I wish I could too, you know that. You'll work a job out. The only job I think you should never, ever, consider though, is being in the military. Honestly, you'd suck at that.

Lovino.

 

-  
4th April, 1939.  
Dearest Monica,

Hi. I'm sorry my contact has been so limited! It's just silly Juls with too much work for her own good. At least I have work for now. Sophia and I are only contracted to the school for work until September. I don't know what we'll do after that.. maybe I'll come home, to you and Mama and Papa. How are they? I've corresponded with them, obviously, but I never trust Mama to tell me honestly how she is. I'm worried she's stressed and ill.

And how is school? Goodness, you're getting so old. By August you'll be sixteen.. that's too big for my little sister. Are you going to leave school in July, or will you stay on? I support you either way, I don't mind. Please keep me updated.

Paris is still kind of nice, there's a Spanish deli around here that I spend most lunchtimes in, with my friend Lovino and Antonio. Sophia used to drift along sometimes but now she gets her lunch from a Parisian bakery. She says it's more to her taste. I think she was just jealous that both Lovino and Antonio flirt mercilessly with me all the time, they're such gentlemen. Regardless of blossoming romance, they're my friends, and I enjoy spending time with them. 

There's also Francine, and she's my new best friend. Well, Sophia still is, but Francine is sweet. She does go on and on about her man-friend Arthur though. Honestly. We'll be taking a walk and she'll suddenly blurt out with this humongous monologue on how much she adores him. It's cute I suppose, but gosh is it monotonous. She's a really brilliant dancer though, and a lovely person. An even more brilliant dancer and less lovely person is this girl Natalya though. Maybe she's just shy, but I haven't got through to her yet. She stares at me oddly. She thinks she's better than everyone here, not going to lie. 

Sophia is well and my French is better.

Love,  
Awesomeness embodied?

 

8th April, 1939.  
Julchen,  
I only got your letter just in time. It arrived the day before we departed from Austria. This is because, well, we have moved back to Germany. Mother sent a letter but I'm not sure if you'll have received it yet. She explains things a lot better than I do.

Things are not good over here, and it was decided that it was for the best for us to go back to Germany. You know things went wrong here last March. Well, they haven't gone any better. Germany is still occupying Austria. Mama and Papa don't want to be subject to their occupation, they would rather be on the German side. So we have left. Austria is going to go to ruins, mark my words.

I am leaving school this July. I will be trying to join the military. No, you don't need to tell me I can't, because I'm a girl. I will find a way. I'm not settling for anything less than soldiership. My hair is already short. I have the build of a man.

I'm glad you are well. I'm sorry I do not have the tact to write this better, but writing never was my talent. We will be in Munich by the time you receive this. The new address is enclosed.

Monica.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the ballet showcase done, Francine enjoys spending a small amount of time with Arthur, until the evening takes a darker turn. Natalya broods and reflects on her past, and her future too.

"You were so brilliant tonight. So brilliant." Arthur whispered into Francine's hair, as he held her close. The ballroom was deserted by now. Only the light of the overhanging chandelier lit the vast room, and the stage was covered in sawdust, half of the great red curtains pulled across it. It was gone midnight, and the ballet showcase had finished. 

Francine was grateful for Arthur's words, especially when competition was so strong within the school at the moment. She leant her head against his chest, his heart thumping in her ear. It was strangely comforting, and she held onto him tighter. She shuddered when she realised she could feel his ribs through his shirt, and pulled away.

"Never mind about me. It's only ballet." She said modestly, shrugging it off. "We'd practiced for so long, it'd be scandalous if it was anything but brilliant."

Arthur dared let a flicker or a smile envelop his slightly freckled, now that Spring was slipping into Summer, face. "Sure, it was brilliant. But that wasn't what I said, Mademoiselle Bonnefoy. I said you were brilliant." He impressed upon her, and she blushed a little, but she looked pleased. 

"You're such a persistent shit," Francine complained, taking hold of his velvet tie and twisting it idly, yet provocatively round her fingers.

"So you want me to say the entire display was atrocious?" Arthur teased, watching Francine's face contort to that of a sarcastic smile. He laughed a little, and she stuck out her bottom lip just a little.

"Of course I don't want you to say that. I want you to compliment me until my ears drop off." Francine decided, before pausing after a snigger escaped her lips. "I would have thought such a British gentleman as you would know that," She added calmly, knowing she was taunting Arthur and somewhat enjoying it. It was funny to see the self-certain Englishman squirm.

"Of course I knew that. You were the one who rebuked my compliment, Frenchie." Arthur asserted, his wicked green eyes gleaming in the low light of the room. The ballroom may have been painted deep sumptuous colours, the walls draped with rich, detailed tapestries, but to Francine, the most colourful thing of all was Arthur's eyes. They seemed to be sentient, with their own life and their own humour and their own unputoutable energy. Even this late into the night - or rather, this early into the morning, they shone with a breath of liveliness that would sometimes wind Francine.

"Don't call me that, crumpet." Francine sighed a little. "Was I actually good? I.. I think I've lost touch with ballet." She dithered, looking at her feet, fiddling with her hands in apprehension. Ever since Natalya had arrived, Francine had felt disoriented, constantly competing for a place she'd taken for granted. She'd taken her position as top of the hierarchy as something that was entgained into the school, but the lilac eyed Belarusian seemed to have thrown the daintiest, most graceful, spanner in the works. To combat this, Francine had tried sparking friendship. Just a few months ago, she and Natalya exchanged words freely about magic. But after that, it seemed as if Natalya had forgotten that conversation had even taken place. It was like the icy Winter in pointe shoes had got even colder.

"What do you mean, lost touch?" Arthur murmured, his expression gentle. Arthur could shift from his playful sparring to the empathetic softie in a matter of milliseconds. Francine revered this, and shook her head. "Never mind. You wouldn't understand."

Arthur looked hurt, before letting his tousled blond hair fall over his eyes , like a protective shield. He didn't say anything for a long minute.

"Francine, everyone understands being human." Arthur finally said, his words low and gravelly. He extended an arm out to Francine, a delicate arm with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and smiled suddenly. "Please." He gestured, and it took Francine a moment to comprehend the situation. Arthur was asking her, in his own confusing way, to dance with him.

"There isn't any music," she said tentatively, interlocking her fingers with his, suddenly shy. 

"We can put some on. There's a gramophone." Arthur reassured her, loosening his grip to go and choose a tune.

"It'll wake the entire school up. You know, because most students are home and asleep now? Like ordinary people." Francine murmured, hushed.

Arthur smirked a little. "You're no ordinary person, Francine Bonnefoy. How awful of you to suggest such a thing." He inhaled a little, clasping her fingers, and reaching out for her waist. 

She gasped a little, before smiling, and he twirled her effortlessly, the musky rose pink light of the room illuminating her blushed cheeks. "I didn't know you danced," she commented, her hand on his shoulder as the couple rotated, Arthur struggling a little to keep up with her pace.

"As a rule, I don't. Look at my footwork. Hideous compared to yours," Arthur said back, and Francine giggled a little. "Only because I've danced since forever. You can't compare yourself." She flattered him, before suddenly tailing off as Arthur gripped her tightly, and pulled her in close. "I hope we never have to leave each other." He whispered into her hair, no matter how much it tickled his face. 

Francine stiffened in his hold. "Why do you say that?"

"Do you not hope so too?" Arthur seemed hurt, but he tried to mask it.

"Of course I hope so. But.. we will, right? Why would you bring that up? Is something troubling you?" Francine questioned, tilting her head to look up and study Arthur's face.

Arthur deliberated. "It doesn't matter. I don't want to be the one to tell you everything." He whispered hoarsely, and Francine realised his tears were budding with tears.

"What do you mean? I.." Francine tried to salvage the situation, she wanted to know what was causing Arthur so much grief so suddenly. To be honest, she'd never seen him show this much emotion. Affection, yes. But Arthur's default was always the mischievous, intellectual gentleman, and she'd never seen him start to crack.

"This is about Germany, isn't it? This is about the things on the wireless." Francine barely enunciated the words enough to make them audible. She couldn't say she understood the events being reported on in neighbouring countries, but it didn't take a genius to guess that these weren't good events.

Arthur remained silent, using one hand to wipe away his streaming tears, and the other to cling onto Francine. "Don't let's talk about it. This evening is about commemorating you and your ballet." He said hurriedly, but Francine was skeptical.

Generally she wasn't deterred from getting what she wanted in life. "No, tell me. Tell me what's going on." She enforced, her eyes steely and stern, which surprised Arthur.

"You heard that Germany invaded Austria, correct? And they're occupying Czechoslovakia, too. Next, I'm predicting it'll be us in France or Poland. They want an empire, Francine." He said between gulps. "And no.. you probably haven't heard. They're making these awful unprecedented laws and it's horrible, I hate it. But we can't do anything about it, not until we go to war."

Francine's jaw dropped a little, and she fixed her gaze on the floor, on her sequinned shoes. "War?" She repeated, questioning. 

"Yes, war. The entire bloody continent is set to go to war." Arthur said, silencing both of them with his own statement. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dampened this evening. It wasn't my place."

Francine shook her head. "I don't want to be hidden and cushioned away from reality, Arthur. Just because you think it'll upset me. Some things need to be said." She said, her voice dry, as if she was about to burst into floods of tears. "Why now? Why so soon after the Great War? They said that would end all wars, Arthur. Did they lie? Did everyone lie?" She suddenly expelled these words, bitter and pent up with solemnity and hatred for the continent, for her country, for Germany, and even for herself, for not knowing what was going on. For being too naïve and cocooned in her own balletic world to take even the slightest interest in what was going on. She pulled at Arthur's shirt and buried her face into it, tears pooling in her eyes.

Arthur didn't say anything, except held her with all the compassion and strength he could possibly give her.

Outside the ballroom, with an ear pressed to the door, stood Natalya. Her face was stern, her eyes cold and misty. This was what Ivan meant. This was what Ivan was anticipating. Her brother, who she loved most in the world, whose words she had dared to question, was right. Her heart started hammering. She was tired, she was supposed, like Francine, to be in her bed in one of the dormitories for foreign students above, but she wasn't. She'd seen that Francine wasn't in her bed after the performance two hours earlier had finished, so she'd been suspicious, and followed her steps downstairs. Natalya was very easily tempted into suspicion, always deciding that others never had good reasons for doing things or saying things, that they were always trying to gain something beneficial to them or find something out about her to expose or simply to stir things up that they shouldn't. Trusting didn't come easily to her, and when she was a child, her brother Ivan and her half-sister Yekaterina were the only people she chose to associate with, her only friends, really. But before she turned ten, Ivan moved from Belarus to Russia with their father after a divorce, and not long after, Yekaterina moved to Ukraine to find her father, as she was eighteen by then, and only shared a mother with Ivan and Natalya. Until Natalya was fourteen, she never saw either of them, and what little letter borne correspondence was infrequent and cold. 

After both her siblings had left, that was when Natalya started taking ballet more seriously. She'd danced since before she was three, because her father loved it so much, and later on, beloved Ivan grew to adore it too. She danced for Ivan. She danced because she thought that maybe if she was good enough, her father and Ivan would come back. Even now, she didn't really understand why it was that they had left. But that didn't matter, because she was reunited with Ivan. Their father had been dead now for two years. 

And as for Yekaterina, Natalya did not know. They wrote letters occasionally, but Yekaterina kept her personal life private. Natalya assumed she had moved out and found her own home, as by now she was 24. She did not even know what Yekaterina looked like anymore. When she thought of her, all she saw was Yekaterina freshly eighteen, about to leave for her half homeland Ukraine. Then, she had had corn coloured hair to her waist that she usually braided, and dressed simply in aprons and floral dresses. She was hard working, and she loved her younger siblings more than anything.

But if that was true, then why did she want to leave? 

Ivan had compensated for his departure in Natalya's eyes. She tried to visit him at the university as many days of the week as possible, and they exchanged letters sometimes daily. He was so tangibly close now, only twenty minutes away by foot. It made her feet hurt walking even that short distance after a gruelling day of ballet, but it was for Ivan, and if it was for Ivan, then she did not mind at all. 

She sighed softly. Through the door, she could hear that Arthur and Francine were silent, and she sunk to her knees, her back against the door. She was chilly through the muslin material of her nightdress, but she couldn't bring herself to go back to bed. She extended one leg in front of her, scrutinising it. Her feet were bruised and cut and her toes were deformed from years of being bound away into ballet shoes. Everything about Natalya was elegant except for her feet. But her feet were for ballet, and ballet had grown to be her life. 

If she was sent back to Belarus with her mother, if a war broke out, would she be able to continue ballet? The country was poor, and with her father's death had come financial decline for the family. Ivan had quite a bit of money still, she knew that, but it was hardly comparable to the days of her early childhood when the family had revelled in luxury, in extravagance, and been known as quite one the classiest families in Europe. Maybe that wasn't all gone.

But part of Natalya knew that the entire continent was slowly getting poorer, and that her mother would be no exception. In Paris she could do anything, she'd be scouted and her career as a ballerina would commence. In Belarus she'd do the washing up and sew and clean and cook.

There was only one thing to hope for. That everyone was wrong, and there would be no war whatsoever.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August, 1939. Juls is returning to Germany for a few weeks to visit family. And Sophia reveals just how oblivious she is to growing conflicts within Europe, until Antonio tells her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a few Spamano moments in this one ;)

Mid August, 1939.

Sophia awoke, her vision bleary as she groped around on her nightstand for her glasses. Across the room, Juls was positioned in front of her opened wardrobe, her eyes flitting through her unexciting selection of clothes. 

"Really, you should have packed before. Your train is in two hours," Sophia commented snarkily, still submerged under her bedcovers, but now wearing glasses too. The spiteful tang was evident in her voice.. Juls was returning to her family, now in Germany, for three weeks and Sophia was stuck in France. Jealous, yes. But it couldn't be helped. Sophia's parents were abroad in the United States visiting friends, meaning that even if she did travel home to Austria for a summer holiday, there wouldn't be anyone there for her to see, not really. 

"Oh, shut up. Leave me alone for once, Sophia." Juls hissed back under her breath as she slid a dress off of a hanger, and folded it up less than neatly. 

Sophia raised an eyebrow, surprised at the small retaliative outburst. Juls generally put up with Sophia's perhaps insulting commentary, but clearly, today, this was not the case. 

"Don't snap at me." Sophia hissed huffily, pushing off her covers and sitting up, cross legged, on her bed. "Just because I'm right."

Juls paused, and lay the dress over one of her arms. "Do you even hear yourself? Do you even hear how conceited, how absolutely insufferable, you sound?" She lashed out, turning round to scrutinise the Austrian. Sophia's eyes widened behind her spectacles, and she struggled for words.

"Excuse you? Me, conceited? You don't know what you're talking about, self proclaimed epitome of awesomeness." Sophia said icily, and Juls furrowed her eyebrows.

"That's a joke, Sophia. My 'awesomeness' has always been a joke, and you know it. Know what incidents are appropriate to bring into arguments in the future. You.. you just believe you are better than anyone else. That your music is superior to mine. That your family is too, just because we didn't have a cleaner and a tutor like your family and we weren't Austrian and that Monica and I are only half blood related because I'm half Prussian and she's full German. It doesn't even cross your mind anymore how much you believe in your superficial superiority." Juls exploded, before dropping the dress she had been holding and flouncing out of the room.

Sophia's mouth made the shape of an 'o.' Juls.. Juls was lively and energetic.. but she'd never been capricious like this. Juls felt passion for things, but she didn't just explode like this. Sophia sighed, before waiting a moment for the door to creak back open. Juls entered the room again, avoiding eye contact with Sophia.

"This isn't about my behaviour towards you, is it? This is because you're nervous. You don't want to return home. You're so worried about what Germany has become. You're worried about how your family is. You haven't seen them in almost a year, Julchen. It's understandable. You're worried that everything is in shattered fragments of what it was before. You're worried about the war." Sophia deduced, looking at her hands all the while she spoke.

Juls's eyes flickered in surprise. "War? Sophia, there's no war. You're making things up."

Sophia laughed bitterly. "You keep kidding yourself, Julchen Beilschmidt. But before you come back there'll be a war, mark my words." 

Juls didn't say anything for a long minute. Then, avalanches made out of tears crashed down her ivory cheeks.

"Are we bad people, Sophia? No.. I'm a bad person. I'm German and I'm bad." Juls whispered, her voice husky.

Sophia looked confused. "Why are you saying that, Juls? You're not a bad person."

"Why couldn't I be English? Or Swiss? No.. instead I'm German and Prussian, and my country is disgusting." She murmured, and Sophia finally pulled herself from her bed, and in just another second had wrapped her arms around Juls, hugging her tightly.

"Germany isn't bad. We're the good guys. It's that USSR that's bad. They're ruining Europe. If there is a war, we'll eliminate them, and those damn Brits." Sophia tried to console Juls, but Juls suddenly pushed Sophia away with a twitch of her arms.

"Don't say that again. Don't say that again. I'm going to hope you haven't got a clue what you're talking about, because if you have, then you're horrible, beastly, disgusting, Sophia Edelstein." Juls accused, and Sophia's heart sped up.

"Germany is crooked and twisted and harsh and fascist and I hate it. I don't want to go home, but if I don't, then I'll never know what's going on. I want to see my sister before she's corrupted further by the systematic indoctrination going on over there. The entire country is deluded, Sophia." Juls hissed, and Sophia's eyes were frightened, petrified even.

"Juls, are you feeling alright?" Sophia said, her expression gentle and concerned. 

"Don't talk to me like that, you condescending shithead. Sophia, do you have any idea what's going on in Germany? Any idea at all?"

Sophia opened her month and then closed it again. She didn't have a clue what was going on in Germany. All she knew was that they had invaded her homeland of Austria, which she somewhat agreed with. Austria needed pulling together, she'd decided.

"No, I don't. Tell me." Sophia whispered, fixing her eyes on Juls.

"I should be packing." Juls said back sternly, trying to avoid blatant refusal. Right now, she didn't really want to talk to Sophia.

"But I want to know." Sophia pressed, clasping her wrists and surveyed Juls's face. The Prussian girl looked dejected, yet somewhat fiery too. Sophia had never seen Juls like this before.

"Great. Go and ask Antonio. He'll tell you everything. Meanwhile, I need to pack everything up." Juls ended the conversation, and started stuffing some pinafores and skirts into her suitcase. Being neat wasn't one of Juls's concerns, but that was okay. Being neat isn't everything.

The Prussian's head was still blazing with thoughts over how Sophia had acted, and the more she dwelled on it all, the more she got annoyed. This was just another prime example of how superior Sophia thought she was, how she thought she could take a stance on things she knew nothing about.

At last she was decidedly packed, and all that was left was for her to make her way towards the train station. She didn't bid Sophia goodbye, which was fine. Sophia had left the old studio apartment for some reason anyway.

****

The late summer sun baked down on her back, but Sophia was determined not to be put out by a little bit of excessive heat. If Juls wouldn't tell her, then Antonio would. She hadn't set foot in his deli for a while, but she also hadn't done anything to irritate him, so she thought nothing of it. She saw Lovino around the school every once in a while, and he always stopped to say an enchanting 'Hi,' but Sophia had long since decided that Lovino wasn't on the market, if you get the gist. You only had to take a look at Lovino and Antonio together to work that one out.

The Austrian girl didn't know how to feel about the earlier occurrences with Julchen. She cared about that Prussian albino with all her heart, for all she denied it. But now she wasn't so sure if that would be reciprocated. Her emotions towards Juls were complicated. True, she'd never seen herself marrying a man, but obviously, she couldn't marry a girl. What if Juls moved on without her, leaving Sophia behind with nothing but the consolation of music? The thought was disheartening, perhaps mostly because she could see it happening.

The deli looked as sweet and quaint as always, with chorizo and herbs hanging from the ceiling inside, and the washed out yellow paint of the outside peeling off. And there were the cheery little renovated apple crates outside the shop which Antonio had recently planted roses in, which always made a passing-by pedestrian smile. Antonio's customer rate was still small though. 

As per usual, Lovino was seated outside, not on a seat though, on a table of course, his chin in his hands. Antonio was a few yards to the side of him slicing a hunk of seeded bread on another table. His old patched shirt was open so his chest was exposed. 

"Ay, Miss Sophia! Long time no see!" The Spaniard called euphorically, smiling widely. Lovino gave a little smirk. "Good morning, Signorina," He purred flirtatiously. Sophia nodded to Lovino, but didn't reply. She was a touch breathless from the walk to the deli - exercise was still not her strong point. 

"Yes, yes it has been rather a while. Uh, well, I was hoping--" Sophia broke off with Antonio's interruption.

"Ah, Miss, save your words! Please sit down! May we get you anything to eat? A drink, surely!" Antonio said, turfing Lovino off of the table so Sophia could sit down in peace. Lovino scowled at this, and ripped off a chunk of the loaf the Spaniard had been chopping. When Antonio saw, the Italian stuck his tongue out.

"I don't really min--" Sophia murmured, tailing off again. 

"Perfect! Please try this broth! Hake, white bean and Spanish sausage! Fresh off the stove." Antonio announced, smiling proudly. 

"But it's not lunchtime-" Sophia protested, but Antonio simply disregarded her words with a quietening hand gesture. 

"I'll share it with you, bella." Lovino smiled, pulling out a chair on the opposite side of the table and sitting down, his warm, golden gaze interlocking with Sophia's own lilac-grey eyes. She felt as if she was on a date for a minute, before shaking her head. She wasn't interested in anyone like that. Not really.

Antonio danced out of the doorway, holding three large bowls of the broth, and placing them down before Lovino and Sophia. He dragged up his own chair from another table, so he could sit and eat the third bowlful himself.

"So, how have you been, Miss?" Antonio said, beaming. 

Sophia looked into her bowl of broth to avoid eye contact. "Good, I suppose. Just been enjoying the Summer. Juls and I took some walks beside the river, which was nice. How have you two been?" 

Lovino rolled his eyes. "I just came back from Italy. My brother is a literal airhead. Honestly, he spent all his time with girls instead of doing his work, and my grandfather was telling me that his grades are plummeting. He's going to end up as a professional womaniser. Funny, I always thought I'd be the Vargas with that job." He smiled at Sophia, his grin suggestive.

"I haven't done much. I haven't got the money to do much. But spending time with Lovino is all I can ask for," Antonio mused, his voice drifting as if in his imagination he was somewhere else. Then he suddenly looked grave. "I'm worried this may be the last summer I can do so." He then added, leaning across the table so only Sophia could hear.

"You're so sappy, bastard," Lovino remarked, unaware of the last thing Antonio had said - which was the Spaniard voicing one of his worries. Antonio laughed heartily, leaning back in his chair. "I know, Lovi. I know." He said, his voice rich and happy, even after hearing Lovino's critique.

"But never mind. How is the broth?" Antonio asked, his eyebrows raised as he questioned. 

Sophia nodded politely. "It's lovely, Antonio. Thank you so much. How much do I owe you for it?"

But the Spaniard shrugged, carefree. "I don't want payment. I just want you to enjoy what I make." 

Lovino sighed and put his head in his hands, feigning exasperation. "Honestly, you tomato shit, this is why your business is going down the drain. You'll be bankrupt by next year." 

Sophia looked worried at Lovino's ominous words. Antonio meanwhile simply smiled. "Yeah, maybe I will be. But it's fine, no? I am happy. I cannot ask for more than that." He did look content to Sophia, but something was in the man's green eyes that she couldn't put her finger on. Fear. And not, she decided, over potential bankruptcy.

Lovino sneered. "We'll see if you feel the same way when it actually happens. You have nowhere to go. You live above the deli. If they take this deli away, what will you do?"

Antonio didn't reply.

Sophia let her hair fall over her face, so much so that a strand of her chocolate coloured locks slipped into the remaining broth. 

"Sorry if you don't like truth." Lovino stated under his breath, before standing up, and piling up the trio's bowls to being inside to be washed up. The sky was no longer azure, instead darkening to a washed out charcoal. 

Antonio drummed his fingers on the table top. "Why was it you visited? I mean, you're always welcome to do so, but there must have been a reason?"

Sophia struggled to string the words together. "I.. um.. I was hoping you could tell me what's going on with Germany." She sighed. "I realised today just how ignorant I am about it."

Antonio let a flicker of a smile spread on his face. "Juls sent you, didn't she?"

Sophia nodded, but didn't say anything. Antonio exhaled a little, before saying; "She really means a lot to you, huh? You care about her."

The Austrian blinked, and looked Antonio in the eyes. "More than I can express. I.."

Antonio nodded. "It's okay. Some things don't need words." He looked off into the distance, at the city of Paris below his deli, on its rickety, ignored, cobbled road on the little hazy slope. 

"All you need to know is that maybe this city won't be standing this time next year. Maybe.. maybe I won't be standing." Antonio followed up, beginning to answer her question.

Sophia met his gaze. She didn't want him being cryptic. She just wanted to be told the facts.

"This is to do with Hitler, isn't it?" Sophia muttered. "My father always said he was bad news. My mother seemed to support him."

"Nobody really knows what's going on actually within Germany. But most of Hitler's entire ploy to being elected was the eradication of the 'pests' of Europe. I'm guessing it's bad news for minorities over there. But no one really knows." Antonio explained softly. Lovino suddenly emerged from the doorway of the shop, and stood behind the Spaniard.

Sophia didn't say anything, and instead focused on the view of the city too. Minorities? Eradication? She didn't like the sound of that, but then, most people wouldn't. Some people would, and Sophia didn't know if after hearing this, she could face them.

How could she have not known? She'd always prided herself on being well rounded and educated. Yet this was all happening, and she hadn't known a thing about it.

Lovino slid his arms round Antonio's shoulders, sliding his hands beneath his collar. He leant over and brushed his face against Antonio's, his lips exploring the Spanish man's cheeks. Before Sophia could even hide her eyes, the two were kissing.

Their love was so strange to her, Lovino seemed to have shown no prior affection to Antonio, yet here they were. And yet Antonio seemed to love him anyway.

Finally Lovino peeled himself away, and sat down at the table too. "So, what are we gossiping about?" He asked, teasingly.

Sophia finally turned to Antonio.

"So if the Nazis hate minoroties.. What do the Nazis think of albinos?" She murmured.

"They hate them. Say they're subhuman." Antonio replied.

Sophia's heart started pounding.

She'd never realised how much she cared about Julchen until now.

Because Juls, the person she cared about most, had boarded a train to Germany.

Juls, the person she cared about the most, an albino, was heading to Germany.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An easygoing chapter, if you ask me. Don't worry though, I've got you covered later on, angst lovers. You can count on me ;>

Chapter 8

August 31st, 1939.

Not a word had been sent from Julchen, who had now been in Germany for over a week. Sophia wasn't worried, no, she wouldn't allow herself to become worried. The Germans had better things to do than persecute people with such snowy hair as Juls, surely? The albino would be fine.

Instead, Sophia busied herself with spending time with Francine, whom she had grown to care about immensely. The two would sit and eat croissants on the little balcony of Juls' and Sophia's crumbling studio apartment, and watch the sun rise on the city of Paris. Francine would talk about projects she was part of in the school, and engagements she had outside of the school. This was most exciting for the Parisienne, because it meant her school career was ending, and her career as a proper performer was beginning. So far she'd been issued with a role in a ballet debuting next March, which she would never shut up about. Sophia didn't mind, not really. On the exterior, she was pleased that Francine was doing something with her life, excelling and stepping closer to her aspirations. On the interior, Sophia knew how close her contract with the school was to ending. After that, she and Juls would be unemployed. She'd asked the school to think about renewing her contract for another season, but she'd been given a pretty blunt refusal. This hurt not only her finances, but also her pride.

Was her music not good enough for such a prestigious institute after all?

"Sophia, are you listening?" Francine interrupted, tugging at Sophia's arm. The two were walking along the Seine, the stone pavement sun-kissed and golden in the bright morning sunshine. The trees swayed softly above the two, rustling and letting their boughs blow softly in the zephyrs. 

"What? Yes, of course I'm listening. You were saying about how Arthur kissed you at midnight on the steps to the university." Sophia murmured, tilting her head to focus on the delicate ripples of the river.

"No, I said that a full two minutes ago. What I said was that he invited me to go to his family home in England this Christmas. Imagine that!" Francine's words tumbled out of her mouth, she she tightened her grip on Sophia's arm absent-mindedly. 

Sophia stopped walking altogether. She didn't say anything for a moment, before prising Francine's arm off of hers. "Stop it, that hurts." She said under her breath.

"You're in such a bad mood today." Francine sighed, her golden hair falling over her face, her face hurt and crestfallen. "Have I done something wrong?" She inquired, though her voice was barely audible. It had the slightly nasal quality of someone about to burst into tears.

Sophia turned and looked at Sophia. She looked at the way her long wavy golden hair hung around her, framing her face, the way it was loose for once instead of being scraped back into a topknot. She looked at the way her blue eyes weren't just blue, but were periwinkle with a touch of topaz when they glinted in the sun. She looked at the way her cheeks were ever so slightly rouged, but far from overwhelmingly so, and that her lips were the purest childlike baby pink. And she studied Francine's petite frame, her small arms and her shapely legs that showed underneath the hem of her simple white cotton sleeveless summer dress. 

She wondered for a moment how she could ever bring herself to let something bad to Francine. Even though she was Austrian and not German, a part of her felt so guilty for what was to come. Paris was preparing for war. Whether Francine knew that or not, Sophia didn't know. But Paris was preparing for war, and likely not in vain.

"I'm sorry. I'm all ears now. That's amazing, Francine. You'll go, right?" Sophia averted her demeanour, and smiled. Francine looked once again cheerful, and then smiled coyly. "I'd like to go. I don't know if I will though." She replied, and linked arms with Sophia as the duo set off again. 

"You should! Do you know much about Arthur's family?" Sophia tried to engage properly with the conversation, but her words felt stilted and forced. Francine didn't seem to notice, though. Something told Sophia that this had been on the French girl's mind for a little while now.

"A little. I know he has four brothers! I'd go insane with that many. I mean, I like my two younger sisters, but I like them more when I don't spend every waking moment around them." Francine said softly. "Sophia? What's your family like?" She asked.

Sophia shrugged. "I didn't spend much time with them. My mother was always out for lunches and dinners and parties and my father was often away on work business. I spend most of my days with my governess and Juls's family. They lived next door." She said, hardly wistfully. In fact, when she talked about her family, she didn't seem to convey much emotion at all.

"Oh." Secretly, Francine decided it explained a lot. Sophia wasn't antisocial, but she wasn't a social butterfly either. The only person she willingly spent time with was her piano.

"Well," Francine added, "Family isn't the be-all and end-all of everything. Sometimes, friends are more important. I think this is one of those times."

Sophia smiled thankfully to herself, before changing the subject. "What do want to do now?" She asked, watching other pedestrians pass by, some in groups, some with briefcases, clearly on their lunch hour. Summer didn't last forever, and people returned to work. Sophia returned to work in a couple of days, not that she was going to be employed there much longer. And Juls would come back in a week or two, and then the two would have to discuss what they would do next.

"Maybe we could go out for lunch? With Natalya? And Arthur?" Francine suggested, trying to think in a way that would appease the Austrian. "We could go to a restaurant. Splash out. Live a little." 

Sophia muffled a giggle. Francine, when it came to life, was one of the safest people ever. But as a matter of fact, so was Sophia. The only truly reckless person Sophia had ever met was Julchen, and she pretended to hate her for the trait. She didn't really. 

"Only you would call spending a small fortune at a restaurant 'living a little,'" Sophia said, mocking scorn. 

"So it's a yes? Shall we go back to the school and ask Natalya? And then see if my little Brit is free too?" Francine chided Sophia enthusiastically, and she rolled her eyes. "Sure. If that makes you happy." 

Sophia suddenly felt compelled to always do what made Francine happy.

**

"The rumour is wrong. Snails taste like shit." Natalya said outrightly, stabbing her fork into the fleshy body of one of the pieces of the escargot the group had ordered as a starter. She'd come along under the promise of free food, and when they had gone to the university to see if Arthur wanted to come along too, his roommate Ivan had seen his feisty little sister was part of the party and had decided to join as well. So far, things were going well.

"Charming, isn't she?" Arthur said to Ivan with a smile, who simply put his head in his hands and shook his head. "If her mother heard her using those words, I despair. Honestly. She needs to have her mouth scrubbed out with a bar of carbolic soap." 

Natalya wrinkled up her nose. "It would taste better than this excuse for a meal." She remarked, pushing her plate away. "I hope there are better options for the main course." She hissed, folding her arms. 

Francine smirked. "French cuisine not your taste, huh?" She probed, and Natalya gave her a sharp kick under the table. "Evidently not, Frenchie." The Belarusian snapped, but Francine simply smiled. "Ah well. Have an open mind." She shrugged, and took a small, dainty bite of the snail meat, before the waiter arrived to clear away the remnants of the starter course and their used plates. 

"Must admit, I wasn't so keen on French things until I tasted Francine," Arthur smirked, and Natalya choked on her drink. Francine extended an arm to pretend to slap the Brit, and Sophia covered her mouth with a napkin in an attempt to avoid spitting out her drink with laughter. Ivan just looked disgusted.

"Sorry, sorry. But the opportunity was there." Arthur laughed, and Francine fell in love with him a little more. The way his slightly too long blond hair was messy and tousled around his face, which was freckled yet pale as ever in the scorching summer heat. The way he was wearing a long sleeved shirt but had to roll the sleeves up to deal with the sweltering weather, the way his eyes lit up when he laughed and how childish his smile was for all he could come off as pretentious.

"Yeah yeah, shut up. Francine, as our resident French person, what the fuck is 'coq au vin'?" Natalya interrupted, squinting at the illegible swirly font on the menu. 

"Just try it. You might like it." Sophia murmured, not looking up from her own menu. "Personally, I'm going to go for the Bacheofe. Sounds right up my street." The Austrian concluded, and Natalya made a face as if to imitate her. 

"A good choice, Mademoiselle Edelstein," Came a voice from behind her. The voice was deep and rich, and familiar. When she turned around, stood Antonio. Except for once his curly hair was groomed and slicked to the side, and he was dressed smartly with a black apron around his waist. "Let me take your order," he said with a grin.

"Antonio-? What are you doing here?" She asked, confused. The rest of the table said nothing, except watched the exchange.

"Let's just say, the deli isn't paying for itself. I wanted another job. Part time, of course. But hey! I'm now a waiter!" He said, before nodding expectantly to the table. "Are you all ready to order?"

Sophia closed her menu and looked down at the tablecloth. Antonio wasn't working at the deli? He wasn't sitting outside making bread or playing his guitar? That was his life. This seemed wrong. He seemed too neat, yet surprisingly adept at this job. He put everyone at ease, and laughed and made jokes. It made sense she supposed, his easygoing nature was enough to set hearts aflutter and young girls swooning, for all Lovino claimed to be the flirty one.

But still. She'd never really, in the year - or close enough - she'd known him, she'd never seen him as fit for anything else than working at his deli.

"How did you know him, eh Sophia?" Francine asked teasingly. "A boyfriend?" 

Sophia shook her head hurriedly. "No! No, not at all. Just a friend." 

"I see right through you." Natalya smirked, and coiled a lock of her long silky blonde her around one of her slender fingers. "You make a cute couple."

"No really! He has a .. boyfr-- significant other! I'm not interested in romance." Sophia enforced, and the table shut up, but looked dubious.

"Shame. You'd be a good little girlfriend." Ivan said, taking a sip of his wine, before shaking his head. "Not a patch on the vodka of the north. But it's alcohol, at least."

"Typical young Russian lad." Arthur commented, before smiling at Francine. "When you come to England I'll get you to sample some real fine English ale."

Natalya frowned. "Is that a euphemism?" She said, training her gaze on the Englishman, who simply smiled. "Probably not." He said, leaning back into his chair.

"I wish days like this could last forever." Sophia finally said under her breath, so no one else but she herself could hear.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> September 3rd, 1939.
> 
> Britain and France declare war on Germany.

September 3rd, 1939. Germany, an old cottage.

"Wake up. It's already eleven o'clock." This voice was gruff and low and seemingly manly. The actual speaker looked manly too, with short feathery blonde hair and chiselled features. 

"Shut uuuuup, Monnie. I don't want to get up." Juls, who was still half asleep, replied weakly, her blankets still pulled up to her jaw. 

"It's not a question of if you want to or not. It's a question of that you should. It's late and you're wasting the day." Monica replied, before sighing. "1, 2, 3, 4," After the fourth count, she reached over and whipped the blankets off of Julchen.

"I hate you," Juls said sarcastically, before grinning. "That's a lie. Anyway, what's for breakfast?" She said, swinging her long legs out of bed and reaching for her comb on her bedside table.

"Well, I had breakfast two and a half hours ago. I had toast and butter. I don't know what Mama and Papa will have made for you." Monica said curtly. "Maybe you should cut your hair short like mine. It seems to take you such a while in the morning, it's inconvenient." Monica offered, and Juls shrugged. Her long hair had always been somewhat part of the definition of her. Her red eyes and her white hair had sometimes been more quintessentially 'Juls' than her actual personality.

"I'll leave you alone, then. I'll be in the garden with the dogs. Training them. Of course." Juls nodded at Monica's words, and her younger sister left the room. Juls remained seated on her bed, running her comb through her soft hair, until she was satisfied. Five minutes later, she closed the door to her bedroom - or rather, the room she was staying in - dressed. 

She descended the stairs and padded into the kitchen, smiling brightly. "Good morning! How are we all on this fine day-" 

"Shush." Monica's mother and Juls' step mother, hardly a demure woman, hissed, and Juls widened her eyes. The family, her mother, her father and Monica, were sat round the kitchen table, listening intently to the radio. 

"Should I sit down?" Juls mouthed, and her father sent her a death glare. "Julchen Beilschmidt, you will not utter another word until this broadcast is over." Juls complied, and trained her hearing on the radio.

Time seemed to tick by slowly as the radio purred, until the grave words sounded.

Britain and France had declared war on Germany.

No. This couldn't be. True, Juls always declared herself as Prussian, but in actuality, she was half German too. This was her country. This was her country and it was at war.

And it was at war with the country she'd lived in for the past year with the conceited Austrian, the country she had made friends in and got a job in and got the tiniest three room studio apartment in. 

Juls had been born in 1920, 19 years prior. Just two years after the ending of one of mankind's most brutal wars, a war that had impoverished her country, a war that had claimed so many lives, both German and not. 

Was it about to all happen again? Surely not. That was the war to end all wars, and it was going to. This would blow over. In fact, she decided, in the minutes after war was declared, that it would all be over by Christmas.

"What are we going to do?" Monica spluttered quietly, her bright blue eyes suddenly pained and scared in a way Juls had never seen them before. Monica had always been too strong and big and burly for fear. Yet here she was, literally quaking in her boots. 

Neither parent replied. Their father drummed his fingers on the coarse wood of the table, and a tear rolled down their mother's cheek.

"This is, without a doubt, the worst summer holiday ever." Juls stated, looking at her feet and exhaling deeply. 

"Be quiet, Julchen. This isn't the time." Her father snapped back, before standing up from the table and slamming his fists on the table top. "One thing is for certain. You, under no circumstances, will not return to France." He nodded to himself, as if asserting that he'd made the right choice.

"You can't say that! I'm grown up!" Juls hissed, fiery, taking a step towards the table as if to threaten him. "You can't say that."

"Whilst you are in my house, I'll say what I like." Her father retaliated, not even making eye contact with her.

"Maybe this isn't the time to have this conversation." Monica murmured under her breath, but if anyone heard, they didn't acknowledge it.

"This isn't your house. Our house is in Austria. Where we lived for ten years. I don't know what made you want to move here, but it's not our home. This house is old and it's ugly and it's not where I want to live." Juls shot back, slamming her own fists on the table, which juddered under their combined weight.

"I will return to France. Tomorrow." She then said, her eyes flaring and piercing, which looks scary on an ordinary person, but with the crimson hues of Juls's eyes, looked positively petrifying, demonic.

"No you won't. You can't leave this country." Her father, who had never in Juls' eyes been a cruel man, said finally. "You are staying here. You can find a job here. I don't even want to hear you speak of returning to France." 

"So you're just going to let my life disintegrate like that." Juls remarked boldly, her heart thumping. True, she didn't really enjoy her job playing and composing music there. Music wasn't her life like it was for Sophia. Given the choice, she'd rather have a different job, like nursing or teaching, but she'd been too scared to lose Sophia to pursue those. She'd made such brilliant friends in Paris, for all she complained about it.

She didn't want to leave it without bidding it farewell.

"Don't word it like that." Juls' mother coined in with a long sigh. "That's not true. You were there a year. Just pretend you were never there."

Just pretend you were never there.

Just pretend a year of your life didn't happen. A year spent with a new job, in a new country, with your best friend-come-companion, with your new friends who aren't really new friends.

Pretend you had to leave that life on holiday. When you go on holiday, you come back, right? You just leave your everyday life for two weeks or so. When you come back, you resume things as normal.

But if you never come back after that holiday, you never get to say goodbye. You don't say goodbye to your life if you're going to come back. But what if that never happens? What if you never say goodbye and you never come back?

Well, she could just run away. Run from Germany right now and be back in Paris by tonight. Back where she didn't think she belonged, but it turned out she did.

****

September 3rd, 1939. Paris, a Spanish delicatessen.

Antonio hadn't slept in the past two nights. It wasn't insomnia. It wasn't because he'd stayed up with Lovino.

It was because he was worried sick. Germany had invaded Poland on the first of the month, which Britain and France had tried to preemptively stop from happening. But Germany hadn't backed down.

Just like Antonio knew they wouldn't. And his head hurt, and he hadn't opened the deli in two days, nor had he shown up for his part time new job as a waiter, four days a week. 

His green eyes were deep set in eye bags from his sleep deprivement, and he'd not eaten either. He looked a state, and he couldn't go to work in a state, nor could he see Lovino in a state.

Needless to say, Lovino was secretly worried sick. His dancing had been off, shaky and as if he was preoccupied mentally, which of course he was. He'd knocked on the door of the deli Antonio owned and lived above, but there had been no reply. For all Lovino knew, Antonio could have fled the country in the past two days, there had been such little communication.

"Lovino.. are you.. are you alright?" Francine asked as loudly as she could muster, her voice wobbling, her head stuck round the door to one of the practice rooms. Lovino was sitting hunched against the back wall, the wall without the mirror, his head in his hands, his pointe shoes still tied to his feet.

The room was entirely empty apart from the duo.

"You wouldn't u-understand," Lovino said between messy sobs, not taking his hands from his face so his voice was muffled.

"Well, maybe I would!" Francine asked in an attempt to sound cheerful, walking into the room and kneeling in front of Lovino. "If you tell me, perhaps I could help." She added quietly, fiddling with the hem of her skirt.

Lovino let out another sob, before looking up at her a little.

"Is it.. is it about the radio?" Francine probed, her eyes suddenly dulling again at the mention of the radio.

"What do you mean?" Lovino snapped, though he didn't mean to. But he was upset, and miserable and emotional, and that was okay.

"You haven't heard the radio?" Francine asked, surprised, before a tear snaked down her rosebud cheek. "I don't want to be the one to tell you."

"What the fuck do you mean by that? What do you have to tell me?" Lovino said, looking up fully, bursting out of his cocoon.

"No! Not tell you! Tell everyone! Tell the continent!" Francine gestured wildly, but Lovino still looked uncertain.

"We're.. we're.. we're at war. With Germany. With damn Germany." Francine whispered, and Lovino's eyes widened. "They just announced it about ten minutes ago. In a speech by Neville Chamberlain. Britain and France are at war with Germany because they're occupying Poland." 

Lovino felt like saying - 'That's it?' He thought Francine was going to tell him that Antonio had killed himself or something else equally horrendous. 

Antonio meant much more to him than France did. He was Italian. He would start to care when his home country was threatened. No, he didn't care about France. All it was to him was the country where he attended school, the country where Antonio was. 

"Right." Lovino said quietly. Francine raised an eyebrow. "That's all you've got to say? 'Right?'" She questioned, before shaking her head. "This is war we're talking about. This is serious. Serious beyond comprehension." 

"Well, maybe I can't quite comprehend it, then. To be honest, I can't really care. This whole world is going to shit anyway. The faster it happens, the better." He hissed, before the doors to the room were flung open again.

Running into the room with her brunette locks streaming out behind her was Sophia. Her sleeves were rolled up for once, and her pinafore was ruffled, which was unlike her. Sophia always seemed to take such care of her appearance, keeping it immaculate.

"Please come quickly! To the deli! Antonio's deli, rather. Please, it's serious!" She cried breathlessly, and Lovino was onto his feet in a matter of milliseconds. Francine picked herself up and followed the two, but Lovino was already racing through the foyer, through the doors to the school, down the tall marble steps to the institute.

Sophia was hot on his heels, for once, her lungs putting her to no avail. 

"Lovino, you forgot to take off your pointe shoes-!" Francine yelled, running a few feet behind Sophia and Lovino. 

The streets of Paris were empty on this morning, the weather was balmy and the sky was a sombre grey. It was only the three of them sprinting, almost childishly. It was like running carefree through the winding pebbled streets, except this time, the trio were full of cares.

You can run wildly at any time of your life, but it can only be carefree before you grow up.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> War takes a toll on everyone, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I disappeared for a few weeks! Hopefully updates will be nice and frequent now. Thank you all for still being supportive!

Antonio lay sprawled on his bed, the sheets haphazardly bunched around his body.

To be honest, he did look more like a body than a living person. Even Lovino, upon entering the room, started believing in that maybe mortality was more prevalent than he had before anticipated.

The trio had sprinted the entire way to Antonio's deli, which he lived above. Lovino's heart sped up into a panic, and he immediately pounced on Antonio, lifting up his chin to identify whether or not he was breathing, and ramming his ear down onto Antonio's chest just to hear his heart beat.

 

"Why is he like this? Why isn't he waking up?" He asked hurriedly, his voice tetchy and anxious, and Sophia shivered a little. "He might be unconscious."

"He damn well better be! He.. he twitched his eyelid." Lovino suddenly interrupted himself, and shook Antonio. "Bastard! I know you're in there!" He cried, as if Antonio's consciousness was concealed within his lifeless form.

Francine fiddled with her wrist idly. "Do you even know how to resuscitate the unconscious?" She asked, before hearing Antonio stir.

"Generally they wake up," the Spaniard drawled groggily, trying to focus on the blurred world around him. His cheeks were tearstained, Sophia suddenly realised. Had sheer emotion rendered him passed out? 

"Don't try and sit up, idiot. You're barely awake." Lovino said as Antonio tried to prop himself up, and he turned round to open the curtains. "Man, how long have you been out for?" Lovino asked, but underneath his apathetic exterior, it was clear that Antonio's unconscious spell had worried the Italian. 

Antonio sighed, and flicked a dark curl out of his eyes. "I don't know. I don't know." He muttered, and Sophia made eye contact with Francine. They weren't wanted here, not right now.

Lovino swivelled back round to face Antonio, and he watched as Francine and Sophia exited the room. "Seriously, Toni. Something must have brought this on." 

Antonio shook his head defiantly. "Don't worry. I'm fine now, look." He said, extending out an arm as if to emphasise his point.

"Yeah, yeah. Stop trying to act macho. I don't want to see a façade. I'm not convinced your health is all that great." Lovino hissed, pushing away Antonio's curls and feeling his forehead temperature. He was slightly feverish.

"Don't undermine my fragile masculinity!" Antonio chuckled, before shaking his head. "I'll tell you the truth, Lovi. It must have been stress. The war outbreak." He paused, and looked as if he was going to say something more, but didn't.

Lovino remembered how het up and fretful Antonio had been about the possibility of a war.

"I don't really remember how I lost consciousness . I don't think I fell or anything. I mean, it would have been convenient to fall into my bed. And I'm sure I don't have concussion." Antonio followed up. "But please don't worry. I'll be up and about tomorrow, promise." 

Lovino shrugged. "I wasn't really worried."

Antonio nodded. "Sure. But in the meantime, you must have heard." Antonio looked pained as he tried to work out how to word what he was going to say.

"I've heard. I think it's a fuss about nothing." Lovino remarked, biting off a hangnail.

"You think France and Britain at war with Germany is a fuss about nothing? Are you stupid?" Antonio said, sitting up all of a sudden, his cheeks flushed with rage. 

"Calm down! I just meant I think it will all blow over." Lovino said, trying to rescue the situation.

Antonio pushed his covers off, and was on his feet, his gait unstable. "Do you not know about The Great War? That war ruined Europe. That war ruined your home, France, Germany. That war claimed so many lives. Nothing is to say it can't happen again." Antonio hissed, slamming his hands down onto Lovino's shoulders, who instinctively kicked him in the shins.

"Don't touch me! And no, I haven't forgotten! But it won't happen again! Nothing like that will ever happen again! Or did you forget that it was the war to end all wars?" Lovino retorted.

Antonio made a face. "A war to end all wars, yet one has just been announced. Ironic, huh?" He said, folding his arms. ''I'm surprised at you, Lovino. I thought you were mature enough to handle situations like this."

"Do you see me acting immaturely? Instead of jumping down my throat every time I speak about this godforsaken war, why don't you let me have my own opinion? I just don't think this war is going to last! Which is a good thing, you pessimistic asshole!" Lovino exploded, and Antonio exhaled.

"Forget it. If it doesn't pertain to you, it doesn't matter at all. If it was Italy at war, you'd think differently. You'd be quaking in your stupid pointe shoes." Antonio stated, and looked at Lovino. "Tell me I'm wrong."

Lovino's cheeks burned, and he refused to wean his gaze off of Antonio. "Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up. I'm being fucking optimistic. Of course I'm terrified! I'm worried my family will be bombed, I'm worried you'll have to fight, I'm worried this will end up exactly like the Great War. If I wasn't worried right now, I wouldn't be human." Lovino said finally.

****

Francine left the deli and didn't stop running.

Her hair streamed out behind her, her golden brown curls. Her heart thumped in her chest. Somehow the nerves around Antonio had curbed the fear she'd harboured for the outbreak of war. But now she was on her way to see Arthur, they were expanding and multiplying like cells.

Arthur had warned her of this. And Arthur was her everything. Somehow, putting the two together made it impossible for her not to resort to seeing him.

She thundered up the steps to the university reception, and ploughed through the front doors. Students littered the corridors, talking in hushed tones or carrying books or carrying out other mundane errands. Everything seemed as normal, which made Francine a little less on edge.

But that mentality was long forgotten as Arthur's door was opened to her and she was enveloped instantaneously in his arms. He said nothing, but enraptured her in his warmth and his comfort. She clung to him, her fingers digging in to his slim waist, her ear right above his heartbeat, the pattern of which was like a sedative.

When they finally pulled apart, she met his gaze and saw the pain in his emerald eyes. "Your suspicions.." she began, her voice low and even slightly incredulous. "How did you know?"

Arthur pulled a face. "Know what?"

"You knew there was going to be a war." Francine pressed, her eyes unblinking.

"I think you forget I am studying journalism. Everyday I smother myself with newspaper articles, literally." He paused to smile a little. "It didn't take a lot of analysis. Most people have known it was coming for a long time, Francine."

She nodded. "Right. But yet now it's here nobody seems to know what to do!" She exclaimed breathily, knitting her eyebrows together.

"I know. I know. But the government is prepared. Or so help us if it isn't." Arthur sighed. "We'll drop bombs and lose men and it will be just like the war before." 

Francine avoided eye contact. Arthur wasn't sure what to say.

"If I was a person with any say in how France is run, I wouldn't bomb anyone." She said gruffly. Arthur studied her for a long moment. Was she not meant to be grown up by now, ready to leave her days of childhood? She thought so much like a child, with naïvety and the idea of always giving the benefit of the doubt so compressed into her mindset. In a way, this irritated him. It also made him love her more.

"Maybe you should be the one running France then." Arthur concluded. "But you're not and neither am I. And neither of us ever will." He said firmly, before shutting the door to the corridor and ushering her inside. 

"God, why is everyone so pessimistic!" Francine suddenly exploded, punching Arthur's bicep as tears flooded down her cheeks. "Suppose no bombs will be dropped! Suppose this is all history by next week! Nobody is saying that! Nobody is hoping that but me!" She expelled, pounding Arthur one last time and looking straight into his eyes.

Arthur's expression softened. "Francine.."

"Don't 'Francine' me! I'm right! I'm right! Everyone should shut up and actually try and solve this!" She added angrily.

Arthur waited a moment for her emotions to subside and subdue.

"Francine, do you really think no one has tried to solve this calmly already?" Ivan chipped in from where he stood on the balcony at the other side of the living room/kitchen. He didn't turn to face her as he spoke.

Francine's arms hung by her side as she waited for him to elaborate.

"Of course people have tried. But if one party is going to be irrational, the only way to combat them is to share that tactic. Irrationality. Of course it's not what we wanted it to come to! But we have no other choice!" Ivan ranted, slamming his fists down into the railing of the balcony. The motion of this caused a few petals from the overhanging roses to detach and slowly drift to the floor.

"Damnit Francine, they tried everything." Ivan finished quietly, and the entire room shook with silence.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry I can't hear you over the sound of an emerging plotline

October, 1939.

It was Sophia's last day of work for the school. Her heart was a little heavy at the prospect, but it was heavier still at the thought of that Juls wasn't there to depart from the job that had paid their bills (just about) for the past year with her. 

Juls had been scheduled to return to Paris two weeks ago. There had been no notice, no contact of any change in that. The bottom line was, Juls was meant to be in Paris and she wasn't.

Sophia was worried, there was no denying it. She lied. She lied to Antonio, and told him that Juls had found a job in Prussia, and that it was better for her to stay there, with her family, in her home country. She lied to Francine and said that Juls had found a sweetheart there and couldn't bear to leave him. She lied to Natalya and said that Paris just hadn't worked out for the Prussian.

On hearing this, Natalya had said, "And has Paris worked out for you?"

Sophia hadn't really known how to reply. Paris had given her a home and a job and friends and a new lifestyle that had felt just right up until the war. Paris was where she had come to bloom and arguably she had.

It was early evening, and Sophia, Arthur, Francine, Ivan, Natalya, Lovino and Antonio - who had very easily worked their way into the group and were now well-liked characters - sat on the balcony of Arthur and Ivan's university apartment. The balcony, as aforementioned, consisted of a table and huge bushes of flowers that lined and shaded the balcony, and the view was of Paris, and it was sunset, and it was one of the most beautiful hideaways in the world.

"What will you do now, then, Sophia?' Arthur asked politely, pouring her some champagne, as Lovino rolled his eyes. "I didn't come here for small talk." The Italian interrupted, and Natalya grinned at him.

"I don't know. I've got a signing at a local restaurant to play some piano three nights a week until Christmas, which should keep food on my plate. I'll find a composing job though, because that's what I prefer." Sophia mused, and took a sip of the champagne. 

"Why don't you become a busker?" Natalya smirked, her chin resting in her hands. 

"Oh my goodness, can you just imagine Soph busking? Sitting ever so precariously on the curb so her skirt doesn't get dirty, frowning whenever she sees a child. Amazing." Francine put her two cents in with a hearty laugh, and Antonio smiled a little. 

"Maybe Sophia and I could become a double act, eh? Guitar and piano? I think it's got potential." Antonio inputted and Sophia rolled her eyes. "Nothing on your musical skills, but no." The Austrian said very quickly, and Antonio feigned offence.

"Leave her alone," Ivan said at last, before stabbing his fork into some of the fine charcuterie - meat - Francine had arranged on a platter in the centre of the table. 

"Shut up and fill your fat gob." Natalya said, before adding: "Arthur taught me that one." Arthur writhed uncomfortably underneath Francine's judgmental gaze for a second. "Apologies." He said, in a tone that you and I and everyone knows that means he is not sorry one bit.

"In Italy we'd call this 'antipasti.' Has a better ring to it than 'charcuterie," Lovino commented, taking his own portion of the thin starter meats laid out. "It's not a patch on antipasti either," he snubbed the meat, and the table rolled his eyes. It wasn't a normal day if Lovino didn't complain about the arbitrary differences between France and Italy.

"Why don't you take us all to Italy and we can sample the antiwhatsit stuff for ourselves?" Francine asked, and Lovino sighed emphatically. "I will one day. You'll see there's no competition." Antonio smiled at his melodrama.

"It's nice to escape, isn't it?" Sophia blurted out all of a sudden, and the chatter ceased. "It's nice we have the chance to forget about politics for an evening." She then said, looking straight down at the tablecloth.

"We'd forgotten about politics until you brought it up just now." Natalya said curtly, and Ivan furrowed his brow. "No, shut up Natalya. What Sophia had to say was important. Kind of resonates with me." He murmured.

"War or no war, we're still all friends, and we can have fun still. War doesn't need to be the be-all and end-all of happiness." Francine stated, her eyes looking watery. "Right?"

"Don't be sappy." Lovino remarked, but then he nodded. "Sure. I understand what you mean." He played around with the food on his plate. "I'd eat this shit French food all day if it meant I could escape for a little while with you all just every now and then." He confessed inaudibly, so only Antonio, who sat next to him, heard. And he fell in love with him a little more.

"Sorry for that." Sophia said, before taking a long swig of champagne. Arthur shook his head. "There's no need to apologise. You're right." He decided, leaning back in his chair a little. The darkening sun was warm still on their faces, and although the table was hushed, it was a happy hush.

"Maybe this war isn't going to be that disastrous then, eh?" Antonio said as the meal finished a while later, to Lovino, who shrugged. Arthur handed Francine her coat as she prepared to leave with Natalya to return to the school's dormitories, and suddenly Antonio pulled Lovino in close, winding his hands round Lovino's toned body, bringing his lips into collision with his own and fusing the two forms together. And then Arthur dragged himself into Francine, holding her chin up as he met with her lips, impassioned. Natalya shielded her eyes and Ivan seemed to enjoy the spectacle.

And Sophia wondered if it was okay for her to want to do that with Julchen too.

****

Lovino walked with Antonio back to the deli, underneath the deep quilt of the impending twilight. The evenings were getting chillier, and Lovino kept himself close to Antonio. "Did you have a nice time?" Antonio asked as he delved into his pocket for the keys, and unlocked the door to the establishment.

"Sure. Sure it was nice." Lovino murmured, the familiar downstairs of the deli dark and musky in the lowlight. His feet brushed against something and he doubled over to pick it up.

"Hey, you've got post." He announced as Antonio hung his own coat up on the little hatstand. "Mm?" He replied, and Lovino tore open the first envelope.

"This one is just a bill. Electricity. You should probably pay that." He said, to which he heard Antonio chuckle.

"You and I both know that won't happen until I am in dire straits and my lights literally will not turn on anymore." Antonio admitted, leaning on his meats counter. "What else is there?"

"Huh, this one doesn't look like a bill." Lovino commented, studying it. "Antonio, its from the French government." 

Antonio stiffened. He wanted to tell Lovino to drop the letter. To go home. But he couldn't, his words stuck in his throat.

"Mr Antonio Fernandez Carriedo," Lovino read aloud.

"A rising matter of urgency in recent months for the ministry of finance has been your payments, or lack thereof, for the establishment listed below." Lovino went on to read out the address of Antonio's deli.

"Ultimately your inability to pay has resulted in charges of fraudulence of the bank and thus the premises will no longer be under your name."

Lovino's heart plummeted. Antonio's seemed to shriek in agony. "What the fuck, Antonio?! What the fuck?" Lovino demanded. 

Antonio closed his eyes for a long moment. "I'm sorry! I couldn't pay! I took out so many loans and I couldn't pay!" He screeched and Lovino recoiled.

"You can work this out, right? You can get another loan?" Lovino panicked, his voice scraping the higher octaves.

"Lovi.." Antonio's voice tranquillised. "So many times have I taken out 'another loan,' saying it'll be the last one, that I'll really make some money this time. I have to face it. They have to take my assets. I have nothing to pay them with but this deli." Antonio whispered, and Lovino felt like burying his face into his chest and bawling.

"But where will you live? This is your home?" Lovino asked, reverting to this childlike persona that obviously hadn't left him. He was still a teenager. He was still filled with the notion that everything has an answer and that there are easy ways to work things out, when in reality things are far more complicated.

"I'll have to go home." Antonio said at last, still holding Lovino close. "I haven't got anywhere else to go as far as Paris is concerned."'

"Home? This is your home?" Lovino probed, looking up and studying him. Even now, Antonio's face was still warm and energetic and his eyes were inviting and full of beams. 

"You know what I mean. Home to Seville." Antonio muttered, and Lovino felt as if those words themselves were ominous. Home was where Antonio was for Lovino, so surely the same was true vice versa? 

"You can't do that. I'll.. I'll hide you under my bed and you can work in the days to try and pay for your own place. There's got to be a rational solution." Lovino pulled apart and ruffled his hands through his hair anxiously. 

"And this is it. Lovino, please don't worry. I.. if I have to go home, so be it."

"Was this your plan all along? To just leave me and go back to Spain?" Lovino hissed, balling his fists up so his nails pricked his skin. Antonio's eyes widened at Lovino's accusations.

"No, no. Lovino. This delicatessen was my life. And so were you and Sophia and Juls and Francine and everyone. France has been my life for a great many years. I don't want to leave!" He started to cry, and Lovino felt himself crumbling. He couldn't work this out. He couldn't make this right. Hell, even Antonio had tried, and until today.. Lovino had thought Antonio could make everything right.

"I have to go and that's final. I am a French citizen, but why would they want me to stay if I'm so obviously a failure? I have nowhere to live now." Antonio grabbed the letter and stabbed a finger at a paragraph. "I have two days. Two days to leave." 

Lovino watched.

"Then I'll go with you." He stated at last, his gaze steely as he stared at Antonio, who scrutinised him.

"Absolutely not. You have a life here! You are so close to branching from school and starting a career here! France is your land of opportunity and you have done everything to deserve it." Antonio insisted, but the Italian was stubborn. To sway him was to turn the sky upside down.

"Fine, then you come to Italy with me and we can live with my family. I can dance in Italy. I'll find a job performing in Rome. Easy-peasy." Lovino enforced.

"Not all things are as easy-peasy as you picture them to be-" Antonio said weakly.

"It's a good idea, isn't it. You're considering it, aren't you?" Lovino said smugly. Antonio was never mad at Lovino persay, but it wasn't easy to win him over.

"No. No! It'd never work." Antonio shook his head and folded his arms, dismissing the conversation. Lovino could read him like a book, but just this once he chose to be illiterate.

"It would so work. You could work as a waiter and build up some funds. Maybe one day we could move back. It wouldn't be permanent. But I have a home I can go to in Italy and there is no one to say I cannot bring you with me."

"Well, there is. What if your grandfather objects?" Antonio asked, feeling more and more intoxicated by Lovino's persuasion.

"I don't care. He won't. You're coming with me, okay? You're coming with me and this will all be okay." Lovino said, gripping Antonio's calloused hands. 

"I can't believe I'm agreeing to this." Antonio whispered. "You'll be leaving your entire life behind. Your school. Your dance." He said, his voice trailing off.

"Last time I checked, France isn't the sole place I can dance." Lovino said adamantly. "We're going to do this." He said gruffly, and Antonio looked pained. He so wanted Lovino's earnestness. He wanted his inextinguishable faith. He wasn't much older than Lovino.. yet in those moments he felt archaic. But yes. He would go to Italy.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Italy is go? Italy is go.
> 
>  
> 
> And there's a timeskip a few months forward because wow Juls is alive..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say that I'm going to aim for this fanfiction to be approximately 20-25 chapters long. But as my chapters aren't very long themselves, it will make for light reading still, I'm sure. The fanfiction is going to span the entirety of the war (not in depth though) focussing particularly on the middle part. So this chapter will likely be one of the last 1939/1940 ones.

Lovino woke in Antonio's arms. His eyes struggled to adjust to the golden dusky light filtering through Antonio's open window. Outside, the world had yet to awaken. 

The outside flowers billowed and petals would flutter inwards and slowly drift to the floor. A butterfly paused to land on the window sill and fanned its wings for a moment or two, before it up and left. A monarch butterfly.

Lovino studied the room, the peeling aged yellow walls, the knots in the floor like tussling waves in the sea, the window shutters that were seldom used and their faded colouration, the bashed nightstand, the distressed mahogany desk that fitted as much with the decor of the room as Lovino felt he fitted in France. On top of it Antonio had arranged a large stack of paper, his set of inks and pens, and a pile of leather bound books. Something he'd never really thought about before was that Antonio was well-read, educated. Lovino had dropped out of school at 12 or 13. 

Antonio stirred and he turned to face him. In the early sunlight his olive skin was dappled and hued honey-golden, and his messy bedhead curls framed his chiselled jaw. "Why are you staring at me?" He quizzed Lovino as he opened his eyes and squinted, his sight bleary. 

"I don't know. Look. We need a plan." Lovino said, trying to tug back some of the bedcovers, which Antonio had taken a disproportionate fraction of. 

"Too early," Antonio dismissed, yawning obnoxiously animatedly to get his point across.

"You'd still say that at any given time of day. Come on. Do you really want this to all be seized by the police and you get sent to prison?" Lovino pressed, and Antonio sighed, before sitting up in the bed. Lovino swung his legs out and stretched, before mussing up his hair the way he liked it.

"What's there to plan? We leave France and go to Italy?" Antonio asked, still not really fully awake and alert.

"Yeah, you wish it was as easy as that. Right. I've got to either terminate my schooling affiliations or just leave the school one day and never come back." Lovino mused, standing by the window and fiddling with the soft, fallow coloured branch of one of the blossom trees - now in autumn plumage. "We shouldn't bother with residency. We'll say you're coming on holiday and staying with my family. That gives us some time to sort out what you're going to do with yourself. Now we just need to somehow scrape together some funds for the train." He instructed. Antonio didn't reply.

"This is a stupid idea, isn't it?" Lovino murmured, and Antonio dithered before shaking his head. "No, no it's not. We'll think of it like a holiday and you can show me your beloved Italy." He said, smiling bravely.

"What will we tell Sophia?" Lovino then said, and Antonio opened his mouth, then closed it again, as if he was waiting for the words to come to him. 

"She'll understand." Antonio said firmly, ending the discussion. "You do know I can't speak a word of Italian, right?" 

Lovino shrugged. "You'll be alright. My family speaks English well. You'll get along with the villagers, they're a simple kind." He said, before looking at the floor. "Part of me thinks you're going to miss France a lot."

Antonio laughed a little. "Of course I will. It's my home now. But it's not the first time I've left a place I love." 

Lovino's ears almost pricked at that. He was aware that Antonio was Spanish of course, born in Spain, native language Spanish. He knew he'd moved to France with his grandfather when he was still a child, but his grandfather passed away some several years ago. He also knew that Antonio had a Portuguese half brother, but he didn't seem to be in the picture anymore. But he'd never thought about Antonio's childhood much. He'd never thought about how the emotions Lovino had felt himself moving from Italy to France when he was 13 to focus on ballet would be similar to the emotions Antonio had experienced in his French relocation.

"Tell me about Spain." Lovino suddenly asked, and Antonio looked bewildered for a fleeting moment.

"I'd likely be talking for awhile." Antonio said, shaking his head. "You know I tend to ramble." 

Lovino gave him a shove in the bicep. "Tell me. I want to know." Antonio pretended to look affected, but then smiled.

"So I was born in Sevilla - well, Seville in English - to my mother and my father, and my grandfather lived with us. We lived in this old, old crumbling villa with an orchard and we'd pick our own oranges, and sometimes we'd sell the remains at market. I knew every child on my street, and we'd play from sunrise to sunset. Sometimes we'd get into mischief and climb on the back of horse carts and clatter round our village. And I remember once, this big white she-cat had kittens in our barn, and we used to take the kittens out and make them walk on their hind legs, and we'd drop them from heights to see if they landed on their feet." He paused. "Children are nasty. And then when I was six my mother walked out. My father had gotten a lady he was having an affair with pregnant. Her name was Adelaida and I didn't like her very much. She was Portuguese but she lived in Seville. I remember she moved in with us for a while and used to take up all the room on the sofa, and she'd make me crouch in front of her to rest her legs on me. The baby was named João. I thought he was a strange looking creature, all wrinkly and puckered, a bit like an unripe orange. Father said I'd grow to love him, after all, I was his big brother. But I never really wanted anything to do with him, because he screamed and cried and made my head hurt. So I would spend more and more time outside with my friends after school, and when I came home in the evenings, I would sneak into my grandfather's room and he'd read me stories, but he'd read them in English, because he said all the greatest literature was English. We learnt English at school, but soon I became the best at it because I learnt so fast from the stories. When João grew up and became a toddler I think I started loving him, because he would play with me and my father always said he looked at me adoringly. But I still tried to spend as little time around him and Adelaida, who was insufferable. She complained the house was falling down, she complained all we ever ate was oranges - which is untrue, she complained about my grandfather and she complained that she didn't have nice enough clothes. And my grandfather had had enough. So when I was nine, he sat me down on his bed and told me plainly that we would leave. I asked where we were going to go, and he said 'France.' I remember I didn't really know what to think, I didn't not want to go and I wasn't thrilled either. But then Adelaida started getting violent. If I didn't keep my clothes neat she would throw her frying pans at me, and if I took up to much space on the old sofa she'd kick me in my side and so forth. So we told my father we were going the night before, and in the morning we were gone. I don't know how he felt. But he had João, and he probably has more children now. And when we got to France my abuelo - grandfather, sorry - seemed to know exactly what he was doing. It was like we sauntered into Paris and walked into this deli like we owned the place, which after the transactions went through, we did. This room here was my grandfather's room because it was the biggest. My room was the only other bedroom, and it was very small, but I loved it a lot because in the summer the birds would make nests on my windowsill, and in the winter there were tiny mice to play with. And I remember finding it relatively easy to learn French, but I didn't neglect my English studies either. And then I met you when I was sixteen, and you were fourteen, didn't I? You weren't a very positive kid. But somehow or other we got along. And then of course, my grandfather died when I was eighteen, and the deli was in my hands." Antonio finally let himself breathe. "There you go." He said, tying off his monologue.

Lovino smiled a little bit. "I liked the bit where you met me most." He said smugly.

"Funnily enough, I did too." Antonio grinned, before he leant over, and brought Lovino in close to him, and kissed him passionately. Lovino slid his hands round Antonio's muscled back, before pulling apart. 

"We can't just dawdle like this. We have to get going." He said firmly.

"Sorry, but kissing you is not what I call 'dawdling," Antonio said with a chuckle. "But you're right." 

Antonio didn't have much to pack. Just his clothes, his writing utensils because they meant so much to him, and his grandfather's books, the majority of them in English. "Are you sure about this?" He checked with Lovino, who nodded.

"I'd have been leaving the school regardless in a few months anyway. I'm eighteen. Francine's eighteen and she leaves in a month to start work. I wouldn't have stayed at that school forever, you know." Lovino said decisively, and Antonio didn't have much choice but to agree.

"I didn't really mean the school." Antonio said quietly a few minutes later. "I meant your friends."

Lovino shook his head. "Juls isn't even here anymore to begin with. Sophia won't be alone. Francine will be fine, as will Natalya and the rest of them. Stop doubting my decision, because I know what I want, damnit," Antonio listened. In his mind, Lovino was still the angry young teenager. But in reality, he was growing up. He was free to make decisions, whether Antonio liked that or not. 

"Lets just leave this country before it's torn by the war, alright?" Lovino murmured.

Antonio stiffened. "Where did Sir Optimism go?" He asked, masking his anxiety with lacklustre humour.

Lovino merely shrugged. "All we have to do now is say our final farewells." He said, studying Antonio's small leather suitcase. This was real. This was very much definitively real.

 

January, 1940. Germany. (Three months later)

Julchen sat on the front step to the house, her skirts spread around her like petals on a flower. Her hair was arranged round her shoulders and her chin was in her hands. Her sister Monica sat next to her, but the two couldn't look more different if they tried.

Juls was spirited and lively usually, but her physique was more fragile. Monica was as tall as Juls was - both of them were tall - but with much more muscle, and further still  
much more muscle definition. Her hair was shorn close to her head and was choppy, and she was often mistaken for a boy, especially with her choice of apparel. Monica had very little ambition in life other than wanting to ascend the ranks in the military. This, of course, was forbidden for a girl.

"They're asking for nurses, you know. Recruiting, rather. To help the war effort." Juls whispered, finally breaking the overhanging silence between the siblings. She gave Monica a nudge when she didn't reply straightaway.

"I heard." Monica said stiffly, picking a wilted daisy from the grass in front of the steps and twiddling it in her large fingers. 

"Are you not interested? I would have thought you would be." Juls asked, surprised, and Monica sighed a little. She hated that she was never as animated in conversations as Juls was, making for them to end up very one sided. Juls never seemed to mind - Juls could talk the hind leg off of a donkey as Sophia always used to say, but it somehow made Monica feel bad. 

"Not really." Monica concluded, before letting the daisy fall to the ground. Monica was conflicted internally. Her love for the country with the outbreak of war drove her to want to fight, fight in the army like all the boys in her class were going to - or at least, they would. Even before the war had been declared she'd had her sights set on the military. Every sunrise she'd wake up and walk the family's two German shepherds, Halag and Tab, and she'd work on her stamina by sprinting the entire way home. She had always been strong. When she was seven, she beat the biggest boys in the school - the boys in Juls' class then - unmistakably in strength. Her mother had been a little put out - she wanted her daughter to be dainty and girly - and had put it down to that they were Austrian boys, and that Austrian boys were not very strong at all, thus easy for a robust little German girl to beat. 

Yes, Monica quite had her sights set on the German military. Maybe even the airforce, the Luftwaffe. Anything so long as she could fight for her homeland, the fatherland. 

"Aw, why not? I think you'd be good at it. You're a diligent young thing. Obviously, I want you to finish school before you even consider signing up, but-"

"I'm not going to sign up." Monica said firmly, but very quietly. A gust of wind slithered through the road, echoing through the houses and sending tremors down Juls' back. She'd never been good at dealing with the cold.

"Oh. Alright. I just thought I'd let you know." Juls smiled, and Monica nodded. "Thank you." She said, almost cordially. She didn't mean any ill-will, it was just how she presented herself. She didn't know any other way.

"Did you change your mind about this war then?" Juls asked after another few minutes of rigid silence. Juls had always known about Monica's thoughts on Germany and the military and the government. She'd decided that Monica was too young to challenge the group governing her country. That, or challenging wasn't an option. Monica was bright. If Monica knew about the Nazi government's motives properly, and without the indoctrination perpetuated by the current schooling system, she'd question. But Juls had to remind herself that for the past seven years, the Nazis were who had governed Germany, and that they had the youth's undoubtful loyalty - most of it, anyway. But Juls wasn't convinced about the Nazis. She'd long since decided she didn't like them.

"No." Monica murmured. "We need to enforce order on this continent, and it's evident this is the only way how." She tried to voice her thoughts, it was clear the words did not flow naturally from her mouth. 

"Oh." Juls replied, hugging her knees as she shivered from the cold. Monica looked her up and down. "Go inside." She whispered. "I want to stay out here and think." 

Juls didn't respond, vocally or physically. "No, talk to me. Hey, Monnie?.." she tailed off. "Monica, are you still having those awful thoughts?" Juls asked, turning to face her younger sister, turning to face her icy blue eyes.

"I don't know what you mean." Monica shut herself off, and folded her arms absent-mindedly, as if through her language of body expression she was closing off the conversation.

Juls tried to rephrase. "You're not still having those thoughts about actually joining the army? About actually pretending to be a man?" She drawled wanly, and Monica stiffened.

"You are, aren't you?" Juls answered her own question, and breathed on her hands in an effort to warm them up. Her pale skin was tinged crimson in the bitter weather.

"It's none of your busi-- Are you saying I couldn't?" Monica questioned, and Juls looked puzzled. 

"No. Never. I think you'd be an incredible officer. But you're also my little sister. Not only are you a girl and not a boy, it's my duty to protect you. It wouldn't sit right if I let you go off to war on your own, much as you could handle it." Julchen exhaled, and Monica shrugged.

"If I want to do it, I'll probably do it with or without your permission." Monica admitted.

"There's no doubt you're my sister there." Juls commented under her breath.

Monica paused. "You say that, yet you didn't go back to Paris. You say you need no permission to do things, but you lie." Monica didn't intend to mean, but her demeanour was direct.

Juls sighed. "I know you're right, but there are other reasons I didn't return there." She stated.

"If I join, I join. I'll be valuable to the army. I know I will. I'm just as strong as anyone else they can recruit." Monica said, but it was more to reassure herself than to probe a point to Juls.

Juls waited a long time, whilst thoughts flitted in and out of her head. Just weeks before she thought she'd convinced Monica out of her military fantasy. It was so dangerous. If she was to hear her little sister got hurt, or worse still, she didn't know how she would take it. Monica was strange in her own way, but she meant more to Juls than the Prussian could express. Even when she was in Paris she worried over her little sister, but now she was back home, whatever home was, Monica was always under her watchful eye.

In warfare, Monica would be subject to anything at any moment. She could die.

"Whatever makes you happiest." Juls said at last, and let herself back inside the house.


	13. Chapter 13

October 1939, again. Paris.

The trains screeched to halts around the busy platforms. Sparks flew off of the wheels as they scratched across the railway tracks, children squabbled amongst themselves and mothers shushed ineffectively. 

Sophia hugged Lovino close, then Antonio. When she pulled apart she smiled bravely. "This is it, then." She whispered, looking down at her feet as her vision pooled with budding tears.

"I remember when I first met you, you wanted nothing to do with us." Lovino laughed. "I'm firmly convinced you hated me." He said with a small, brave grin. Sophia remembered when she and Juls met the duo, it seemed a long time ago now. It seemed like a long time since she'd seen Juls, too.

"I remember too." Sophia murmured, and Antonio nodded, picking up his suitcase. Lovino had nothing but a small pouch on his back, with a change of clothes and his pointe shoes. After all, a lot of his possessions were at his home in Italy, which was this trip's destination. 

"Good luck on your endeavours. Get home safe. And please.." she broke off, as she watched their train draw up, the porters dismount and the doors open. She stood back to let journeyers get on, and smiled sadly at the pair. "Please send me letters whenever you can. And if we ever cross paths in Paris again.. I'd like that very much." She professed, but the pair were already swallowed up in the swarm of passengers.

She waited on the platform for the train to slowly judder away before she left the station, her hands by her side, her glasses misty.

But as she walked back to her studio apartment her mind was occupied with thoughts other than Antonio and Lovino. For a month now she'd bottled up her worry over Julchen, Juls, that idiotic albino. No letters, no calls. No return. Nothing. Juls could be dead for all Sophia knew. Juls just simply was removed from her life, and there was nothing she could do about it.

In the bedroom, Juls' bed stood exactly identically to how she'd left it. Her wardrobe still had its doors open from how she'd packed in a hurry. Sophia cared so much about Julchen. Far too much. She sunk to her knees in front of Juls' bed and let the tears flow down her cheeks, let them trickle down her neck and underneath her collar. 

She cried until her eyes were sore, until her very face ached from the liquidised anguish. Her flyaway wisps of her were stuck to her jaw with drying tears, and she sighed. Never before had she expelled this kind of emotion. This was unheard of from her. If she was ever disturbed by emotions, she dispelled them by music. She would sit down at her family's piano in Austria and play, play until all her woes were harmonies and until she felt emotionally void again. But if she wanted to play piano, she had to wait until work in the evening.. there was no way Juls and herself could afford a piano. 

Would it have killed Juls just to write a letter? A short letter? Just to let Sophia know how she was? Would it really have been a trouble? Sophia found it hard to believe that it would have been.

Or maybe it was deliberate. Maybe Juls was revelling in Sophia's absence. 

This seemed plausible.

\--

Tuscany, Italy. October, 1939.

 

'I'm home.' Was all Lovino could think as the train wound into Italy, past the vineyards and the olive groves and the tiny little villages. The sun seemed richer, more golden, more gentle as it seeped through the windows and splashed onto his skin. Antonio watched in awe, his green eyes taking in the surrounding vistas. It was like entering a sanctuary, unblemished by the outside world.

"Well, do you think this could be home for a while?" Lovino asked finally, reclining in his seat and smirking up at Antonio, who simply nodded. 

"It could well be." He murmured under his breath, and suddenly the train halted. They were here.

Lovino gave him a nudge to get up, and he grasped hold of his small suitcase. Outside, the sunlight was deeply warm after the chilly train, and the world seemed to be hued marigold. The platforms seemed less bustling, the staff more unbothered. It was sort of like travelling back in time. 

"You like it, don't you. Wait until we get home. You'll like my village." Lovino said, almost boastfully, as if he felt like his country was something to sing it's praises of. Antonio nodded. "Where do we go from here?" He said curiously, and Lovino simply waved him away. "Just follow me. It's not faraway by foot." He said, almost commandingly.

People were scattered few and far between, Antonio noticed, as they picked their way down the precarious hills and mounts, the grass soft underfoot. It was totally different from the compacted hustle of Paris, which was extremely beautiful, but also extremely busy. The sun was starting to bake down on his back through the thin cloth of his shirt, and it reminded him of Spain, even though he hadn't returned in almost twelve years. Some things are just especially evocative, he decided.

Lovino was right, the walk was relatively short, and soon old, friendly looking houses started to line the hills in the distance, and children's shrieks could be heard, as could the clatter of merchants' horse carts and the occasional tutting of the rare Tuscan car-driver. Antonio's suspicions was right, the town had a sort of nostalgic, old fashioned feel to it, which he didn't really mind. 

Lovino exhaled, basking in the familiarity of the setting. There were the hills he had flown kites on with his brother Feliciano, there was the old bakery he used to buy 'savoiardi' (spongy cakes) from on the way to school, and over there was the schoolhouse itself. The cobbled streets were full of old ladies with baskets of washing, old ladies who prided themselves on sending their laundry to the washerwoman instead, and every window was open, some with flowers lining the windowsill, some with children leaning out and talking to the people meandering down the windy streets. Everyone seemed to know everyone.

Antonio tried to count (but couldn't) how many times Lovino was pulled over, inspected, before smothered with kisses by big motherly Italian women, who spoke very very fast and seemed very very emotional about Lovino's return. Antonio knew that Lovino had been here on holiday barely two months ago, and yet peop,e acted as if he had come back from the dead.

The streets faded into a blur as they continued down into a large valley, and then Lovino grabbed hold of Antonio and started sprinting. It took him a while to realise what exactly they were running towards. An old golden brick one storey house, covered in roses, with a pillared entrance. To Lovino it was home.

They started to slow as they grass changed from stone underfoot, as the outside of the house was paved. Trees stood surrounding it, their boughs enclosed over the roof as of the house had been there as long as the trees. "This is it, Antonio," Lovino kept saying, and only stopped when he rapped on the door.

The door opened barely a minute later by a boy who looked as if he could have been Lovino's twin, except he was an inch or so shorter and with far brighter, more vibrant red hair as opposed to Lovino's brownish auburn. 

"Lovino? Lovino, you're home?" The boy exclaimed, before positively lunging at Lovino and attacking him with a hug. Antonio stood a few feet behind awkwardly. He'd forgotten Lovino hadn't even told his family he was coming home, let alone with a companion. 

The two bothered talked in speedy Italian for a minute, until Lovino nodded towards Antonio. "And this.. this is my friend Antonio. I.. he needed a place to go.. and-"

"But of course! I understand, sir! I would be glad to be offering you a room to stay!" The younger boy exploded, and Antonio smiled bashfully. Lovino meanwhile shook his head. "Feliciano has never quite got the grips of English." He said, aiming a shove at his brother, who didn't deflate and smiled regardless.

"No no, his English is fine. And thank you for the warm welcome!" Antonio positively beamed. "But really, I do not wish to be a burden. This was Lovi's idea." He explained quietly, and Lovino rolled his eyes. "Shut up, bastard. Italians fucking love visitors." He said, before nodding to Feliciano. "Where's Grandpa?" He asked in Italian, and Antonio surveyed the place. Two lanterns hung either side of the door, illuminating the house magically in the growing lowlight. The house itself had random but nonetheless beautiful intricate tiles dappling the old walls, and small olive trees studded the front. It was incredible.

\--

 

June 1940. Tuscany, Italy.

Eight months had passed since Antonio and Lovino had arrived in Italy. And they hadn't even thought of leaving yet.

Antonio had had a lot to adjust to. New language, new people, new food - although that one was the opposite of a problem. As expected, he'd picked up the language easily, but was a little ways off from fluency yet. He knew Spanish, French and English - it had never seemed like an unachievable goal to master the language.

And the girls had simply fawned over Lovino's return. He couldn't simply wander through the village without a 'signorina' on each arm. He was charming to them, of course, but as soon as he got home he would kiss Antonio passionately, so long as Feliciano and their elderly grandfather weren't nearby. 

All in all, Lovino seemed happy. He'd found some work teaching a local ballet class - teaching alongside the old mistress who'd helped him do his first exercises, his first dances all those years ago. Antonio meanwhile drifted through each day. He'd taken to writing, but he also claimed he'd never publish anything. He'd fitted in just fine, and the young girls had liked his Spanish charm, and it was exaggeration to say he was not enjoying his time there, but he was listless. For anything, even for working as a waiter again. He didn't know when or if or how he was going to return to Paris. Lovino was so happy here. And Antonio couldn't leave Lovino.

Antonio only made his mind up when the Germans came. Well, they'd been stationed in Italy since 1939, but Antonio only noticed them when they really were everywhere, when Italy was undeniably under German occupation. Antonio had been perusing an old aged bookshop in the heart of Lovino's quaint hometown when he first saw the German officers. They strode through the village square, which was always a merry little district, full of market stalls and children grouped together playing or reading. They stood out like sore thumbs, dressed from head to toe in their bottle green garb. 

He remembered that he put down the book he was investigating, and promptly left the shop to watch. He watched as the Germans stood in the centre of the market square, guns strapped to their backs, faces cold and emotionless. There must have been about six of them, and they said nothing. The square immediately fell hushed, a feat Antonio thought the inhabitants of the village were incapable of carrying out. And then one of the officers nodded and said 'As you were.' 

Except no one really was as they were after the Germans arrived.

Antonio remembered he headed back to Lovino's house sharpish, keeping his pace quick and keeping the inevitable conversations with the locals brief. Even after eight months in Italy he was still a novelty to them, and he charmed all from the littlest girls to the old, old ladies. 

Feliciano looked up from his studies upon Antonio's entrance and smiled. "Antonio! You're back! I hoped you wouldn't be gone all evening." He almost purred, and Antonio broke into a small smile. 

"Really? Why's that?" He asked, pulling out a chair next to where Feliciano was stationed at the table.

"You must know! We're all going to go down to the old -- I forget the English name -- the wine shop, beer shop? To meet the Germans! Oh, Antonio, I'm so glad they're here. I feel safer already." Feliciano gushed, and Antonio nodded slightly. Feliciano was so young, so naïve. The five years between the pair seemed like a world away.

To Antonio, the Germans felt like a threat representing Italy's diminished power in Europe, but clearly to Tuscany's youth, the Germans were made out to be saviours. It made sense. It clicked perfectly with the Nazi regime.

"Right. And you're going? You and Lovino?" Antonio mumbled, fiddling with his hair.

"Naturally! I want to meet my protectors!" Feliciano joked. "Don't you think it's a blessing they're here?' 

Antonio didn't seem to react. "I'll hear what they have to say. I'll come along too." He said, almost begrudgingly, though Feliciano didn't pick up on that. 

Lovino emerged, shirtless - with his shirt tied around the waistband of his trousers. His hair was a mess and he yawned as he sat down opposite his brother.

"Bit late," Antonio said sarcastically, and Lovino rolled his eyes. 

"You try getting up at the crack of dawn for five years to do excruciating stretches. I have every right to relish lie ins." Lovino snorted, and Antonio sighed, as if to undermine Lovino's struggle.

"It stops being a lie in once it passes lunch time," Antonio muttered, and Lovino swatted him with his shirt. After all, he was fully aware that Antonio was only acting snarky to distract himself from seeing Lovino shirtless.

Later in the evening, the trio traipsed down to the cantina come tavern, which was full of both Italian locals and German soldiers. Most of the Italians, Antonio deciphered, were saying things like 'Isn't it wonderful so many strong German men come to protect us in our small village!", although Antonio detected that some weren't so pleased.

Feliciano, who was barely seventeen, seemed daunted by the array of alcohol on sale, and ended up opting for water, which Lovino kindly called him a 'pussy' for. However, no sooner had the three of them sat down, two German soldiers approached.

Antonio's heart started to thud. He knew he hadn't done anything wrong, yet he felt on the verge of prosecution.

The Germans asked politely to sit with them. The two made for a contrasting pair, one was intensely muscular with a short crop of blond hair and piercing blue eyes, and the other was tall and thin with whitish blond hair and almost red eyes. An albino?

"Well, hello," the albino prompted, and Antonio squinted at him. Where did he know he from?

"Oh, yes, er, good evening." Antonio quickly replied, taking a long convenient drink of ale. Lovino raised an eyebrow. "You really got nothing better to do then come here? Nothing goes on here. Literally." He asked, sceptical.

The albino shrugged. "Just our duties." He said, before downing nearly half his pint of beer. "Not a patch on the German stuff. Italians can make you pasta any day of the week, but beer's a different story." He said gruffly, though it seemed forced, like when a very feminine sounding girl is asked to pretend to do a man's voice.

Lovino studied the albino, and then the other soldier. Something about the albino was definitely familiar.

"As is always. Italians and meat is a sad story for a Spaniard." Antonio confessed, and Lovino looked put out.

Feliciano meanwhile simply smiled at the soldiers. They were souls to be idolised. They were brave and Feliciano was not.

The evening slipped by relatively peacefully until an older, stiffer German officer approached the table.

"I see you've met my young Gerfreiter," the older man said lightly, giving a nudge to the muscled blond male, and Lovino nodded awkwardly.

"Young lad, but he doesn't mess around with a rifle. One of our best new recruits." He added, and the muscled soldier didn't look pleased.

"Ludwig and Gilbert Beilschmidt, our good German brother soldiers. Get to know them well. They will ensure our success in this war." The man then disappeared into the crowds of the still busy cantina.

Feliciano looked tired, and Lovino decided the trio should head home. It wasn't until they were leaving the site that it struck Antonio. He looked back over his shoulder desperately, and suddenly ran from Lovino and Feliciano. He grabbed at the albino soldier's arm and tugged him away.

"Julchen?" Antonio asked incredulously.

The albino - Julchen - seemed panicked for a moment. 

Then - "Antonio, you cannot tell anybody!"


	14. Chapter 14

Filler chapter --

The walls blasted into smithereens.

The bangs went off in canon, one before the other in a long, warped harmony. The walls were caving in of the theatre.

Francine ran. Half strapped into her pointe shoes, her hair tumbling down from its topknot, her gown snagging on bricks being caterpaulted from the distress of the building she left behind.

A bombing.

It had been entirely unexpected. The day was lazy, lolling in the early summer heat. Francine had been in the theatre all day antipating her performance in a matinee show for a ballet company she'd joined. It was nothing fancy, but it paid her half of the rent. She was sharing the studio apartment with Sophia, who struggled to pay everything without Juls to half the payment with. 

Francine remembered that the bomb hadn't even been signalled, certainly not so she was aware of it. One moment the world was lulled and still, the second, chaos erupted and ensued.

She'd run from backstage, where her makeup was still being finished, which was where she'd been when the bomb went off. It had been deafening. It streaked the air with sounds of red and black and spewed fiery pieces of rubble in its path of destruction. It was merciless.

Her instinct was to run, and Francine had always been a product of her instincts. She'd heard the screeches as she bolted, telling her to drop and get under a table or simply cower beneath something or other. But she was indifferent to the yells, and her legs put her to no avail. 

The walls were tumbling down in her wake as they took the impact, and the roaring of the bomb still burned in her ears. Tiny fragments of brickwork sprayed the air and she squinted as the pace of her sprint heightened. All she had to do was to get out, or at least, that was how it was in her terrified state. She didn't hesitate to plan out what she'd do once she reached the light of the day, once she left the collapsing building.

She ran more, closing her eyes, before tripping over the accumulating destruction. Not able to preemptively cushion her fall, she crashed into the hard, jagged concrete, her legs instantaneously gushing with scarlet blood. She opened her eyes.

She was out of the building and the roaring had subsided. The sky was a washy coal colour. Behind her, the theatre she was scheduled to perform in in an hour was a shell of itself. The streets of deliciously elegant hubbub seemed intact on first glance, but then she saw, saw how most rooves had caved in, how glass was shattered, how the pavement was piled high with felled timber.

Similarly dazed people began to unpick themselves from the mess, coming out from their refuges under tables or benches, anything. The bomb's damage had been done.

Th air was chilly, and still the world reverberated a little with the damage. Everything in a 500 metre radius was utterly obliterated. The white gown she'd been about to perform in was stained with dust. Children hid under their mother's coats as the stray survivors took in the scene.

In the near distance, the huge mansions and restaurants of Paris still stood. But the bomb had hit the plaza where the theatre stood, where old winding streets of clothes and antique shops stood, which the foundations of which were still all in one piece, but most of the walls lay smashed in the streets.

There was no doubt that this was a Nazi attack.

(It's so hard to describe the immediate aftermath of a bomb, what things were like in the proceeding minutes. If you can imagine it, then I salute you.)

She panicked, then tried to rationalise. Go to Arthur. Or Sophia. Whichever.

She took off, her skirts bunching around her figure as she ran. The wind was nippy, biting her flesh. So quickly had the soft yellows of the summer's day become chilly and ashy.

The university was so close to the theatre, Francine had always liked that part best. It looked whole to her, unscathed. Thankfully so.

Her heart banging in her chest, she stood doubled over regaining her breath. That was when she heard footsteps. Running. Something.

She whipped round, her hair in her eyes, and tried to focus on the silhouetted blob making its way toward her.

Arthur.

"Francine!" He shrieked, careering into her and pulling her close, his cheek wet on her exposed neck. He gripped her hard, pulverising her shoulders with his thin fingers. "Oh Francine. You're safe." He breathed, not daring to pull apart. 

A tear snaked down her cheek as she breathed in his scent, the scratchy fisherman fabric of his oversized jersey itchy on her skin. "You have to come." Arthur suddenly declared, snapping into reality. "We were - it doesn't matter." He shook his head, clasped hold of her small wrist and started running back into the smoking city. 

The ruins and the barely ruined towered up above them both. Francine never realised how packed the city was. The area hit was small at least, but the sky was grey for all around.

Francine seemed puzzled as the duo ran towards the theatre again, under Arthur's navigation. "It's.. Its Ivan." He sighed.

Outside the theatre was the little ticket booth, where you gave in your ticket for the ballet performance. The line had been full before the bomb, yet was now of course entirely dwindled. The wall with the booth was partially gone.

On the floor, in the destruction, lay a body. Kneeling next to it was a hunched figure, with tangled hair. Natalya.

Francine didn't know and yet knew exactly what had happened.

"It was a surprise. We were coming to see you dance." Arthur said gently. "The three of us." He looked pained. "Them the bo,b hit. We thought we were out of the way but, clearly not."

Francine felt like choking. Ivan's body looked broken, his legs twisted, his skin smeared with dust. And his chest simply didn't move at all. Natalya sat unmoving.

"Surely not." Francine whispered, her eyes filling with tears. 

"The fucking bomb. The impact threw him back and he fell and there was no blood, so we thought he was fine, but he's not, he's completely not." Natalya said at last, her hands twined with his. "He was standing closest to the scene. He was so excited, he loves ballet." 

Arthur dropped to his knees. "My best friend. He did nothing wrong!" He exclaimed, covering his face. 

Natalya hesitated, and looked up. "He told me not to tell you two, but I will. He.. this was his last month in university. He was quitting the school. He signed up to fight in the Russian army. He was going to give up his life. He was going to give up his life to the enemy and they stole it without letting him have the dignity of a hero's death." 

Arthur looked pale. "But he loved what he did. He wouldn't have given up his course at university for anything."

Natalya shook her head. "But he wanted justice. He would sacrifice himself for our safety." She concluded, before sobbing. Ugly sobbing. Gulping, snorts, flooding tears. 

"I danced for him, everyday, I loved him. When he left years ago, I cried every night. But I knew I would see my brother again. And now? I am never going to see him again!" Natalya said finally, and Francine didn't have words to reply. What if this happened to her own family, to Arthur? So easily could it have been Arthur. 

"How do I even begin to tell my mother? How? You don't know! You shouldn't know! No one should be in my position!" Natalya exploded, pulling herself to her feet and wiping her eyes. She was angry, but that was alright. Perfectly alright.

Francine remembered how everyone anticipated the war to be over as soon as it started, to be of little damaging substance. But in ten minutes of a bomb, that had all been disproved. This was the reality of a war.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natalya leaves, and Arthur vies internally with himself. And Francine grows wistful for something more.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, maybe Franada in a chapter soon? This is risky business with a multiship fanfiction, because I might have someone's most hated ship or something in it. The ships included so far are FrUk, PruAus, Spamano, and in Arthur's absence.. perhaps some mischievous Franada..

Natalya traced the ornate ribbing of her suitcase with her long fingers. She sat cross legged on her bed in the dormitory of the school, which had been too far from the bomb to be affected. Tonight, she would leave. She would return to her mother, so many seas away in Belarus. Tonight, she had the prospect of seeing her older sister again. She'd managed to phone home. She'd told them the bad news.

Her eyes were doleful and sad and her pallor was pale and papery, she was wasting away. Her arms were thin and spindly, her stance suddenly awkward for a ballerina. Sighing, she held the suitcase close with her chin on top of it, and closed her eyes. She was almost eighteen. Verging on two years ago, she'd imagined that now she would be the star of Paris or something, gracing each stage in turn with her ballet. Now she was leaving for Belarus, and she had no real idea of the mess her homelife would have become. The old family home, once a display of grandeur, was slowly dilapidating, her mother would be overrun with grief, her sister desperate to help. And Natalya would forgo her career in turn for calloused workergirl fingers and patched aprons.

She fiddled with the buttons on her dress, a simply thing really, with sleeves to her elbow and a Peter Pan collar and a skirt to her calves. At one point in time it had been too small, clinging to her, and now it hung off her. She embellished with an old knitted cardigan, before she closed the door to the dormitory, and lugged her decidedly small suitcase down the spiral stairs. 

Goodbyes were painful. For all she was so cold, Natalya had been a personality at the school. Most of the teachers had adored her, their star pupil, never dulled in prowess. Everyone had had such high hopes for. 

Natalya knew there was still promise for a ballerina in Russia, if not Belarus, and she was half Russian. But really, she was signing off herself to a life basically helping at home. Maybe her mother would pick her out a husband in a few years, and that would be her life. Nobody had ever imagined the talented, spiritedly sarcastic Natalya as a housewife.

She closed the door to the school, French ballet teachers almost in hysterics at her departure. Natalya was immune to their cry. Her mother had called for her to return to Belarus, and she didn't dare go against that. Plus, she was probably needed at home. More necessary there than she would ever be as a stupid performer. A stupid performer whose only reason to dance was simply nonexistent.

The train station was deserted, and the light chilliness in the air bit at her skin, and Francine stood on one side of Natalya, Sophia on the other. The trio said nothing. Sophia fiddled with her wrist. 

"So this is it. We're all.. we're all going down our separate paths.." the Austrian murmured, almost disbelievingly. Her glasses misted, her eyes budded with tears. It had been so hard to get through to Natalya. And she had, and now they were being split, the entire trio. Francine sighed.

"It'll be alright. Both of you have promising futures." Natalya whispered hoarsely, and she believed it too. Francine was on her way to performing at prestigious theatres city-wide, if she only attended more auditions. After the theatre had been destroyed, she'd needed to find new work, and she had, commencing in October, in just a few weeks. 

"Going home doesn't mean the end of an era." Sophia impressed on Natalya faintly, and the Belarusian shrugged. 

"But you can still dance, can't you?" Francine asked, her eyes brightening.

In some ways, Francine wasn't older than Natalya at all. So little had she been exposed to these sort of situations. She came from a well off family in the west of France, and she had never known struggle. Sure, Natalya's family had been rich, her father an imposing businessman, her stepfather out of the picture, her mother doting. But there had been decline. Divorce, Ivan going, and the slow descent downhill for the family economically. There was still hope for success in Russia, but Natalya was grown up enough to let that go. Just like her sister, she'd end up a housewife. That was all that was available if she went home.

Her sister, Yekaterina, was in her early twenties, and Natalya was sure she'd be married off already. She'd gone off to Ukraine in pursuit of her father, and her mother had said in correspondence she had returned to Belarus to help with the grief of Ivan.

It was all frustrating. Farewells were hard, and stepping on the train out of Paris was harder.

**

October, 1940. A little restaurant, but filled to the brim.

'Le chat et la vache' was an old, shabby building, yet also fabulously classy. You know, in the sort of way that antique things can look elegant. It was also the combined workplace of Sophia and Francine.

It had long since been a popular restaurant, known for its exquisite food and entertainment. The piano music was always light, the dancing graceful. And there had been an opening for a pianist and a female dancer. Pretty much broke, Sophia and Francine had eagerly taken up the job, not expecting much out of it.

The ambience of the restaurant was never lulled, but never loud and rowdy. People who attended the restaurant were rich and wanted a nice evening, safe in the thought that the food they were served was praised by multiple critics. 

Sophia's hands glided up and down the ivory keys, the piano was of an incredibly high calibre she had scarcely ever used. And just in front of it, Francine and her French dancing partner entranced the audience with a dainty Viennese waltz. For Sophia in all her Austrian glory, she'd trick herself into thinking she was home.

The evening slipped by warmly until Francine and Sophia finished up, the restaurant cleared, the bitter night air filtering through the door of the restaurant. Arthur stood outside, hunched in a coat, his scarf pulled over his nose, his bangs in his eyes. 

"Francine." He hissed, and she stuck her head out the door. 

"Arthur!" She gushed, blushing pink. "I didn't think you'd ever come here!" 

He smiled. "Why wouldn't I? I'll come properly and have a meal sometime soon. But in the meantime, I have to talk." 

Francine stared.

"There's no point sugarcoating. I'm going to Britain to fight." He blurted, and looked at his feet.

Francine struggled for words. 

"It's not fair that I stand aside to 'get an education' here whilst leaving the work to be done by everyone else. It's just as much my duty." He began, and Francine almost shook her head.

"You're not 'everyone else'! You're a genius! You deserve to be here. You're not cut out for fighting." Francine insisted.

"So my life is worth more than everyone in Britain going to fight?" He demanded, and Francine closed her eyes. This was like a nightmare.

"This is final, this is what I will do." He emphasised, and Francine reached up and ruffled his hair.

"Your hair won't suit being short." She whispered. "I'm proud of you." She then added, because she was. But he didn't have to do this.

"I leave on Wednesday." He exhaled, and Francine's face was suddenly streaked with tears. So soon. Tangibly close. Unfairly close.

"I'll try not to let them touch my hair too much then." He chuckled, but really it was just so he didn't sob. 

"Can't you wait a year, so you're out of school first?" Francine asked, desperate.

"Ivan didn't. The war could finish in a year, and then I would have to bear the guilt of never even trying to fight for the right cause. I can't live with that. I have to do something." He explained, and Francine nodded.

"You're not Ivan though." She said breathily, more to herself.

Sophia suddenly exited the restaurant, wrapped up warm in the Autumn air. "Hello." She purred, and Francine fought back a sob. 

"I'll go now. You two have a good night." He dipped his head, and turned down into the darkness. 

And the night faded into nothing.

**

December 1940.

Francine tore open the envelope. 

When Arthur had left, her heart had been wrenched from her chest and she had cried so many times she'd forgotten what emotional normality felt like. But here was a letter from him, something he'd said he'd send.

My dearest Francine,

It's not so bad. Agreeably, I haven't actually gone out yet. I've been in the barracks. It's intense, no two ways about it. But I'm perfectly alright. Please do not worry.

I miss Paris, but I was always going to. I'm praying you're all safe there, but I'm confident you are. It's pretty here, the barracks is in a place called Surrey, close to London and it's full of rolling hills. I grew up in Kent as you know, and it reminds me of home, except Kent has sea and countryside. I'll go home there soon and bring you with me. And I'll go home to Paris soon too, and I'll get my degree in journalism! But only when this war is won. Spirits are high, but victories are not. I'm apprehensive. I don't really want to face the Germans, but nobody really does, except a few of these patriotic Lancashire lads who are raring to go.

I hope Sophia and you are well. How's work? I trust it's going fine! The evening I visited you treated me like a King, so I'm sure it's all going splendidly. I miss everything about you. I miss your sparkling eyes. I miss Paris sunsets with you, although there won't be many now it's Winter. Christmas is close, I wish I could have taken you to Kent like I said I would. I hope you have a wonderful day, whatever you do. Christmas in Paris is magical, I wish I could see it alongside you.

Merry Christmas,

Love from Arthur.

PS. I enclosed a picture of me in my uniform. Don't laugh.

Francine then shook the envelope and the picture slid out. It was the size of her hand, and in surprisingly good quality. Arthur stood in what she knew was his green uniform, but obviously the monochrome photo did not show this. His hair was a little shorter, but thankfully not slicked back. His eyes were still childish, but his freckles had faded. He looked older, and she felt a pang. Arthur had always been so youthful in face.

"How is he?" Sophia murmured, not looking up from her embroidery. 

Francine deliberated. "Holding up well." She said shortly, and Sophia said nothing. 

Francine knew that her receiving Arthur's letter was painful to Sophia. Not once has Juls written. But then, Francine couldn't compare the situations. Juls was just Sophia's best friend, not her lover, surely?

Either way, it had been a year since Sophia had had contact with Julchen.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Antonio finally realised what he has to do to feel fulfilled. Meanwhile, Francine dabbles in romance.

January 1941, Tuscany.

Even for Italy, the warm Mediterranean, it was cold. It was the kind of oppressive biting chilliness that inched through the newfound permeability of your clothes, and nipped your skin, leaving you freezing.

Lovino rested his head in his arms on the window sill of the living room of his family home, his hair unkempt yet stylish, his eyes wandering the icy scenery outside. He sat on the window seat, with Antonio leaning against his side, his hands cupping a steaming mug of tea. The afternoon was fiercely cold. Both of the two were not used to this, and seemed to dramatise their suffering.

"I feel my soul dying." Lovino spat, almost cross at the climate.

"I feel icicles forming in my heart." Antonio sighed, barely sarcastically.

"Yeah, well, my blood feels like ice." Lovino shuddered. "It's so cold I can feel its circulation." He then added, and Antonio snorted.

"What do you want me to do about it?" Antonio asked cheerily, and Lovino scowled. "Let me complain in peace." Lovino hissed, as the door in the hallway opened, and Feliciano skipped in, laden with four canvas bags.

"Looviii, can you make dinner tonight?" He asked in a sing song voice, and Lovino groaned. Antonio had grown to adore his cooking, but the chef himself was often not as sweet. 

"How much money did you spend? And what on? Pasta?" Lovino asked, not exactly answering Feliciano's question. Feliciano tapped his nose. "You'll see when you unpack the bags." He commented with a smirk.

"If." Lovino then said curtly.

"When." Feliciano shot back instantaneously, and Antonio felt Lovino shift his position as if about to stand up.

As Lovino exited the room huffily, Feliciano flopped upon the worn armchair, generally inhabited by the brother's grandfather, but not today - he had been in Rome for some several days. "Tired?" Antonio asked, not moving his gaze from where it was trained on the stillness of the outside.

"Ex-hau-st-ed." Feliciano dragged out the word. "I don't mind going to the market, but it's such a long way. Plus, the only reason my brother makes me go and not him is because all the old ladies give me free stuff. Yesterday it was free cheese. Today, free sugar. With Lovino, they say 'Aren't you Feliciano's brother?' Then they smile, and give him nothing." Feliciano said, and Antonio nodded. He wondered for a minute if anyone in the village he grew up in remembered him. He wondered if people ever asked his half brother João 'Aren't you Antonio's brother?' - but the likelihood was no. It had been so long, too long. How old was João? Sixteen? Seventeen? Hardly younger than Feliciano.

The sound of clattering pans was broadcast from the kitchen, and then curse words in both English and Italian. Feliciano sniggered. "Lovino is clumsy. Always has been." 

Antonio realised just how much of a childhood, a family he'd missed out on. He'd completely missed João's life. He felt nostalgic, but quickly shook off the notion that he'd ever return to Seville. 

"I'm going out, tell Lovino if he misses me. Back soon." Antonio quickly stammered, and fled the room. Feliciano looked on in confusion, before shrugging, and picking up the book left open on the floor near the armchair.

Antonio wondered just how permanent his lodging at Lovino's home was. He couldn't expect to stay there until this time next year. He'd already been given so much by Lovino. Truth be told, Italy was beautiful, but there was so little here for him.

The ground under the soles of his boots was stony cold, and he was glad he had had the foresight to put on a jersey. His curls blew in the blustery gales that tussled with the village, and he winced in the spiralling wind.

"Signor! Wait up!" A girl's voice sounded, and he spun round. He narrowed his eyes, and finally recognised her. Just the baker's daughter. 

"Please share this with yourself and Lovino. I made it especially." She smiled, and outstretched a box towards him. He looked to her for permission before opening the lid. Inside was a large, thick orange cake, studded with icing sugar and slices of orange. 

"It's a Winter cake, and it has spices. I got the idea from you being from Seville and all." She whispered.

"How did you know I was from Seville?" He murmured, and she giggled. "I'm sorry if I appear strange, but I know rather a lot about you." She looked bashful. "I look up to you."

Antonio had to mentally plug his mouth to avoid laughing. "Really, me?"

The girl nodded. "I know why you're here. You were sent by the Allies in France to look after Italy." She leantover and whispered in his ear. "Italy doesn't want to side with Germany. We know the Allies are looking out for us. And they've sent you, a disguised soldier, to keep our town safe." She spewed, and Antonio felt his eyes widen. What?

"Thank you." She whispered. "The Germans are unfair." She then said, and the hairs on Antonio's neck stood up. Suppose a German soldier stationed here was to listen?

With that, she left. And Antonio remained, clutching the box

He was madly disconcerted. Was that really the rumour? It was far fetched.

But some part of it spooked him. He was an athletic male, sturdy of mind. Why wasn't he fighting for France, which he loved so much?

**

Francine fiddled with a pearl necklace, positioning it on and above her collar bone. She was dresses in a bouncy red dress, framing her figure. Her hair was up, and her lips coloured. She looked different. Already 1941 was changing the girl, not yet nineteen. 

The restaurant job had proved successful. Every night she danced on a little centric raised platform and the guests would clap at every spin and step. And tonight, she was having her first evening with her new partner. Sophia smiled at Francine's reflection. "Stunning. If only Arthur could see." Francine grinned, pleased understandably. 

The duo walked down the lanterned cobbled streets, anticipating their work ahead. Winter was the best season for the restaurant, which prided itself on warming food. Every evening the restaurant was crammed, and spirits soaring.

Sophia was making a name for herself. Bookings cropped up at all sorts of venues after her ongoing stint at the restaurant.

As Francine entered the restaurant, an hour from whence the evening started and guests entered, she felt her heart stop in her chest. As well as the serving staff, a suited male stood in the centre of the room, having a conversation with the boss. His hair was softly wavy, sandy and blond. His face was chiselled yet endearing, and his physique athletic yet not bulky. He was tall, and his eyes sparkled the most odd iridescent blue-lilac she'd seen. When he turned to her, he smiled.

"You're- You're Matthew Williams?" Francine asked, and he nodded. 

"And you are Francine?" Francine nodded dumbly, awestruck.

He blushed a little. Sophia rolled her eyes and took her seat at the piano, testing the chords.

"I'm honoured to be able to dance with you." He said, composed, and she nodded. 

"You're Canadian?" She asked at last, and he smiled. "Every one else here called me American. If they noticed me at all." He said shyly, and Francine felt her legs go weak, which would be a little annoying as she was a dancer.

"I can speak French, if you would prefer." He offered, but Francine shook her head. "No, no, English is quite alright." He looked amused. "I was told the French hated conversing in English," he jested.

"Most do! I don't mind though." She replied, and he nodded, with another smile. "Your friend plays piano? I'm sure she will be wonderful." He said, making conversation.

Francine replied with a yes, and Matthew laughed. "Are you shy?" 

Francine would never have agreed to this before, but around the Canadian, she was.

"It's alright. Dance speaks over words." He hesitated. "Not everyone understands that. My brother, my parents..they expected me to get ready to fight the war. But I'm a pacifist." He muttered, almost bitterly. 

Francine looked surprised. "So you came-"

"To Paris, yes. It's pretty." He said, beaming brightly. Francine nodded yet again, indicating her agreement.

Then, the guests came. The evening was dimly lit yet also shining bright, as Francine locked her fingers with Matthew's, and they pivoted. The two had chemistry. The piano was gentle, their movement and affection more so. Francine felt almost captivated, entranced even.

"You're lovely." Matthew said breathily, and Francine felt almost flushed. She wanted to say it back, but something stopped her.

He twirled her at the end of his arm, and she extended her toes in her shoes delicately, and his eyes glittered. This was the escape from war. Moments like this. 

As the night drifted away, Matthew broke into a smile. "Thank you." He said graciously, and she purred with laughter. "Don't thank me! We're paid for this!" She said lightly, and Matthew looked dejected.

"Perhaps I'd like to do this sometime when we don't think about our salaries," he said seriously, and pulled her in to his lips.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short ;-;

"Antonio has been gone a while." Feliciano said quietly, sticking his head round the side of the doorframe to the large kitchen. His hands gripped the sides of the doorframe, his knuckles turning white with the cold. 

Lovino shrugged, as he scattered some shredded basil leaves over his pan. "He's a grown man, Feli. He has things to do." He said, almost patronisingly. Feliciano sighed almost inaudibly.

"He said he wouldn't be long." Feliciano added, a long moment later. 

"He probably got held up somewhere. I'm not worried." Lovino countered, getting a little bit frustrated with his brother's way of worrying over everything. Anxiety is a counterpart of the human brain, but sometimes Lovino decided his brother took it to the nth degree, fussing and fretting over everything. 

"If he doesn't come back soon, I'm going to look for him." Feliciano decreed quietly, and Lovino bit his lip whilst drizzling some olive oil into the aforementioned pan. He said nothing.

In actuality, Antonio had been gone for just under four hours. To Feliciano, if someone said they wouldn't be long, you had to be back home in twenty minutes. That was just his childish and pedantic sense of time, though.

Lovino waited until Feliciano returned to the living room before he turned the heat down on the stove, and walked in. "If you are worried, we can go now. I'm sure he won't have gone far. That, or he'll have completely hammered himself at the cantina." He said, trying to break into a small smile for his brother's sake.

"You're worried." Feliciano said. "I thought you said Antonio always kept to his word."

"Him being gone for longer than you expected is not exactly untrustworthy or deceitful of him." Antonio commented, and Feliciano's warm eyes blinked dolefully. 

"But with the Germans here.. what if he did something wrong or said something - you know he's opinionated on this war - and got himself into trouble?" Feliciano said, almost pleadingly, trying to coax Lovino subliminally into bringing Antonio home.

"He won't have. Plus, I thought you liked the Germans here." He whispered, and Feliciano looked uncomfortable. 

Feliciano had seemed not to have grown up in the past months. But really, he had. Although his demeanour and the way he carried himself was ultimately akin to a child, he was smart and he was learning to challenge things. Lovino never saw past the rosy cheeked boy Feliciano still was to him, though. Feliciano was growing up, taking an interest in women and politics and nearing the end of his schooling days. And Lovino bluntly ignored it all in favour of highlighting Feliciano's flaws.

Lovino could see he was getting nowhere in way of persuading Feliciano that Antonio was safe,and escaping the acute sense of drudgery felt when cooking dinner would be a welcome respite if only to prove a point to his brother. 

The siblings locked the door, and Feliciano buried his mouth in a thick knitted scarf. Lovino regretted not taking his scarf too.

"Where did he say he was going?" Lovino asked, quickening his pace as the two entered the village, manned adequately with fearsome German soldiers standing like sentries. 

Feliciano shrugged, and Lovino muttered some expletives invalidating Feliciano's intelligence. Feliciano had been drilled to think nothing of his brother's behaviour though.

Lovino scoured the plaza, before giving Feliciano a triumphant look. "He's not here. We won't be able to find him just by looking, we should wait it out." He then shivered, the weather was brusque and heavy and leaden with the cold touch of Winter. Lovino dug in his wallet, fumbled, and handed Feliciano a few coins. "Get yourself a cocoa. You're shivering." He said faintly, and Feliciano didn't think twice about following the instruction.

Lovino then set out in the opposite direction, and pushed open the door to the stationer's. The bell hanging behind the door chimed, and he nodded a greeting to the beaming lady behind the counter. Searching each shelf, he finally fixed his vision onto what he was looking for. Letter paper. For his personal correspondence. He felt incredibly guilty it had not struck him until recently to make headway with writing to Sophia, and everyone else in Paris. After all, she was still a dear friend.

He paid promptly and made good time in heading back to where he'd left Feliciano, outside the old cantina. Feliciano returned with a pink nose and a smile, and thrust a mug of cocoa towards Lovino. "I gave you enough for two?" Lovino queried.

Feliciano replied with only a glittering stare, and Lovino put two and two together. There was not a soul in the village who didn't treat the charismatic yet often socially inept Feliciano to free things.

**

'Dear Sophia' Lovino wrote, struggling to word his next line. He had never once paid attention at school. Putting pen to paper felt alien.

'I am writing in the hope that you have not yet forgotten me, because I have shown little diligence in way of keeping in touch. But perhaps it is better late than never. Anyway, let me cut to the chase then. How are you? What is the work scene like? I trust you are well and life is treating you as it should do. 

Antonio and I are both fine. I have had jobs and I am simply thrilled to be back in Italy. I am sure Antonio likes it here too, but of course he does not have to remain here forever. He finds it hard to source work here. 

How is everyone there still? I have heard there was a bomb which proved terrible, I do hope you were not affected. You must visit us.

I hope you are not still angry over Juls. Know she is doing something wonderful now. Know she was forbidden to make contact with you. Please keep holding on.

Love Lovino.

He read over the piece of paper and sighed, his hair falling over his eyes. The door to his bedroom opened and Feliciano smiled. "He was at a pub just outside of the village."

Lovino frowned. "Who? What?"

Feliciano rolled his eyes - somewhat smug that he had the power of scorn and Lovino was the one being slow to catch on. "Antonio was!"

Lovino fiddled with the paper and snorted sarcastically. "Wouldn't have killed him to being me along." He muttered, and Feliciano dithered.

**

Francine twirled, extended her arm and Matthew planted a kiss on it. The restaurant broke into an applause and Francine blushed pink. Arthur never once crossed her mind. It was just Matthew.

As the tables in the restaurant disbanded, Francine blushed again. "The restaurant thinks we are a couple now." She whispered.

"Is that so awful?" Matthew queried playfully, his eyes sparkling.

Francine hesitated, before quickly cutting in with a "No! No.." she said, tailing off.

"Then what is it?" Suddenly he stopped talking. "You are in a relationship, I knew it." 

Francine felt like crumbling. Then she said something she would regret later. "I am not." She said falsely.

Matthew suddenly lit up. He then repositioned his glasses earnestly. But he would know when to make advances. Now was too soon.


	18. Chapter 18

The fresh February morning nipped at Juls' cheeks as she strode through the Italian village, her eyes bright, her military uniform crisp and neat. Though unlikely, she'd become a most valuable asset to her squadron. She was quick thinking, strangely methodical, and brave. She carried out her duties with the utmost level of diligence. 

She enjoyed the village, she felt at home for all her true home was so different in Germany. But she worried. She worried so much. 

Now that she and Monica were 'free' in a loose sense of their domineering parents after their escapade of sorts, surely she could make contact with Sophia? But something held her back. She and Sophia had not been on great terms as such when she departed originally for Germany. Their relationship had not been in dire straits, but she'd seen that Sophia wasn't feeling altogether well disposed towards the Prussian, and vice versa. If she wrote now, suppose Sophia ignored it? Or felt threatened, angered? Suppose Sophia made her feel guilty, wretched, because really, Juls should have found a loophole. She should have managed to let her know about the shift in circumstances. Juls had succumbed to her parents' fearmongering that letters could be tracked and intercepted and that really, contacting people outside of the Fatherland was unfavourable. Julchen sighed. The market bustled. Villagers paraded up and down through the winding stalls, bartering and conversing at their will, and the most frugal inspecting the delicacies on offer myopically. 

She herself managed to spare a few moments to peruse the merchants' and dealers' wares, some from places like Milan, others from old cottages in this very village. There was something comforting about the market.

She smiled, a little ways ahead of her stood Lovino and his brother Feliciano, who were bickering over a loaf. She had managed to talk to them a little whilst serving her post in the village. But it wasn't like old times.

Feliciano waved. "Hello, Soldier!" He exclaimed, beaming, and Lovino rolled his eyes. "I did tell him to call you 'Julchen,' but he insists otherwise." He said, feigning exasperation. Juls grinned. "S' alright. I don't mind." She laughed, and almost felt the urge to ruffle Feliciano's hair before realising he was practically grown up. 

"Soldier-Julchen, would you opt for seeded bloomer roll or ciabatta?" Feliciano asked, after sending a defiant glare at Lovino. "My brother wants ciabatta, but I don't think I do. We had it last week with every dinner." 

Lovino frowned. "Don't ask for advice concerning food from a German. Setting yourself up for a fall." 

"I would have thought a proverbial remark unlike you, Lovino." Juls quipped, and Lovino wrinkled up his nose in retaliation. 

Feliciano, whilst this discourse unravelled, bought the seeded bloomer roll, and thrust the paper bag containing it at Lovino triumphantly. 

"I'm on duty soon, but maybe I could stop by later?" Juls said, almost inviting herself.

"We'll make extra pasta!" Feliciano said in way of approving her suggestion, and Julchen beamed. Lovino shrugged, but from him, this was practically a 'Please do, it'll be fun.'

**

Antonio furrowed his brow in thought. 

"So you enjoy your work in the army?" He asked, and Julchen nodded, swiping a hunk of bread round her plate, coating it in the pasta's tomato sauce. 

"Demanding, but ultimately rewarding." She mused.

"What is it to you, bastard?" Lovino queried with a sharp nudge.

"I have my reasons." Antonio whispered, and Lovino scoffed back.

Feliciano looked uncertain, and looked down at his feet. The little gathering had somehow migrated into the garden, and the four sat cross legged on the decking. Th sky was clear. It was one of those perfect, beautiful evenings.

"Is this talk putting you on edge?" Julchen prompted Feliciano, who looked suddenly apologetic. "No. Not at all!" He spluttered, and Lovino narrowed his eyes skeptically.

"Spain is not involved in this. You have no obligation to fight if that is what troubles you." Julchen stated.

"Of course. But France is, and that country has given me more." Was her only reply, and suddenly silence crept in, usurping the previously euphoric atmosphere. 

It was slightly unnerving how quickly something could be dissipated.

Dual ties were always a hard obstacle, and Julchen counted herself lucky her German/Prussian heritage caused her no issues. 

**

"Francine." Matthew's voice quivered.

 

She looked up, her ears effectively pricking. Matthew shifted his weight from foot to foot. The two were standing on the balcony of Francine and Sophia's apartment, which completely onlooked the city. The sunset was leaking into twilight, the warm glow illuminating the beautiful houses of Paris.

"I.. I want to thank you for allowing me to come into your life." He coughed, nerves overcoming the shy individual completely.

"Don't be silly. You're great." Francine beamed, and Matthew gulped, though somewhat reassured by her compliment.

"Even so." He murmured, and paused to simply study her. The way she leant on the balcony, her eyes curious, her face splashed by the emerging moon, her hair slightly tousled, her figure emphasised in her violet dress. He had never wanted something more.

"I don't think you're beautiful." He said suddenly, and she jerked.

She said nothing but felt her chest rupture with his cutting words.

"I think you're more than that. Talented, kind, generous, you steal the show so unknowingly with your effortless dance. You are so easy to warm to. You noticed me. You open your heart so trustingly yet also you are fascinating and each day I will myself to get closer to unlocking you, and releasing your true thoughts. You are a fantastic enigma and I treasure the notion that each day I spend on this planet I can see you. You are as mesmerising as-"

Francine cut him off. She pulled him in and their skin was brushing and their lips were colliding and it was messy yet it was so wonderful and his hair tickled her and she giggled and they came in closer and then she caught the eye of Sophia standing in the entrance to the balcony with the most reproachful expression and suddenly Francine remembered.

And she flung Matthew off and she was crying and he looked frightened and she panicked and ran off the balcony and shut the door and Matthew was left standing and he put his hands in his pocket and he felt the suede sheen of the box, and he opened the box and inside was the ring, the ring for Francine, and maybe it had been too big a move too soon but Francine was so incredibly special that he hadn't thought it mattered and she was so confusing and he was so upset.

"Arthur is fighting for peace and you have the audacity--" 

"You know nothing, Sophia. You have never had a relationship." Francine hissed.

"No but I sure as hell know what is moral and what is not." Sophia exploded.

"Take your nose out of business that is not yours. The only world you know is playing piano. You do not understand! I love him!" Francine raged bitterly.

"And Arthur thinks you love him!" Sophia screeched.

Francine suddenly pulled Sophia towards her, gripping her by the collar unceremoniously. Sophia spluttered.

"Things change. Arthur is not here. Matthew is perfect and Arthur is not and relationships fail! Not everything is forever," Francine argued, her eyebrows knitting and andrenalin rushing.

"You could have written to him. Done it the proper way, because he deserves that much." Sophia said coldly, struggling for a moment before pushing Francine away violently.

Francine opened her mouth and closed it again. "Matthew is here and Arthur is not and honestly I am lonely." 

"If you think that is a valid excuse-" 

"What do you take me for? I am horrible! Of course I should have remained loyal to Arthur. But I cracked and I let myself be loved again." Francine sighed.

The doors from the balcony opened and Matthew, his cheeks tear stained, blinked, betrayed. "You should have told me, Francine. I would not have allowed myself.." he shook his head. "I need to go." He said.

"Arthur loves you immensely." Sophia admitted.

Francine sniffed. "He only sent one letter though." 

Sophia shook her head. She opened her bureau and took out a wad of bound letters. She handed them over.

Each was from Arthur, expressing concern as to that she did not reply (because Francine was unaware of these) and telling her that he loved her. 

"These never reached me." She exhaled.

"I hid them away. When you started loving Matthew I decided not to give you these because it was too painful sounding, Arthur and his devotion and you being unfaithful." Sophia stated.

Francine then turned away.

Of course that was not the actual reason. Sophia hid them because she could not bear that Francine had a love who sent her letters and the one person Sophia brought herself to love had not bothered to send anything explaining anything.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weird chapter my dudes :(

December 1942. 

"You can go now, Sophia." 

Sophia smiled triumphantly, and pulled her coat around herself, the ermine trimmed navy one her mother had sent a few days before. She supposed it was a little bit embarrassing that at twenty two her mother was still responsible for her affairs and seeing that she was adequately clothed.

The past year had been different. Thrown out of her apartment after Francine moved out and Sophia herself was made redundant - jobs for pianists were hard to come by, believe it or not - she had written to her parents and they had organised that she would go to university. For the past few months, she'd studied classic art and culture and renaissance, and she decidedly enjoyed it. She had opted for a degree and a two year course, out of which she hoped to become a curator at one of Paris's prestigious galleries. It wasn't the job she'd started out life in France hankering after, but it was feasible - more so than becoming a famed musician was.

It had been hard to let that dream go.

At twenty two she supposed she was in a literal sense still young, but she didn't feel it. She'd matured more than ever recently, she'd become accustomed to being alone, spending afternoons in the window of a coffee shop reading and writing away in her journals. And then of course she'd return to her room at the university, on a floor of post graduates much older than herself. Sometimes she wished she'd just gone to university at eighteen instead of holding on to her perhaps whimsical dream of music.

The war continued to rage on, but thankfully Paris was practically unscathed, if only the same could be said about the other Allied countries. She'd grown to adore the city of love, and accept all it had given and stolen from her.

She and Francine were friends. Their friendship had solved itself and thrived, but they saw each other infrequently. Francine was a real ballerina now, on tour with a balletic production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' - and Sophia almost felt bitter over this. Framcine had got what she wanted. Why couldn't Sophia have?

There was no word from Juls, but that was the status quo. She received eager correspondence from Lovino regularly but not Antonio. He was in the French army.

As for distraught Matthew nearly eighteen months ago, she'd heard little of him. Only that he returned to North America to fight when the US joined the war in spite of his misgivings.

War made people grow up more than aging does.

She jogged her mind back into reality, and picked up papers, walking up to her lecturer's desk and placing down the bundle.

"If you only concentrated more, you could be really really great." The teacher reminded Sophia, who smiled wanly. Every teacher said the same. It was almost like they parroted each other. 

"Something tells me you would rather be someplace else." The teacher added, and Sophia shrugged. She liked what she studied, but the notion of being stuck in a regimented classroom stilted and disengaged her. The only place she was freed was on the stool of a piano.

"Perhaps." She said quietly, and walked furtively out of the room, scaling the staircase to her room. Outside her door, stood one of the post graduates closer to her in age - the Hungarian girl, Elizaveta Hedevary, who studied History. She was twenty four. She see,ed nice enough, but was almost boyish in some aspects compared to the refined Sophia. Elizaveta owed it to her childhood.

"God, she's a bore, right?" Elizaveta whispered with a chuckle, and Sophia nodded. "Drones on for far too long. Literally drains me of life." Elizaveta continued, her eyes sparkling.

"We had her for a few lessons on the renaissance. I was tempted to drop History and work as a flower girl." Sophia decided that was a bit extreme, but didn't mention it.

Sophia had learnt more than anything to hold her tongue. Where once she made sarcastic remarks, there was now just the shell of a girl who was half woman but half still a child, a girl still unsure about her life, a girl still hankering for something S he once had. A girl who was just a human, built of curiosity and skin less than feathers.

**** 

"It's a boy." Natalya's ears pricked. 

"Congratulations." She said flatly to her mother, who was peaking round the door to Natalya's room, where Natalya herself was sprawled on top of her bed. Her hair was tousled and unbrushed, her face gaunt yet childlike, her body more wiry but less elegant. She'd hadn't danced in two years, and her twentieth birthday was next year. She had lost her promise as a ballerina.

"Don't sound so indifferent. It's your nephew." Her mother enforced, and Natalya sighed. Apathy was her new default.

She'd been in Russia for eight months now. Her mother had sent for her following Ivan's death, and the two had coexisted but not got along with one another in Belarus for a while before selling their house and moving to Russia, wherein they invited Yekaterina, Natalya's sister, to live with them. Yekaterina - Kat - had found a boy, been stupid, ended up unmarried, and had a baby.

"I don't want to go in, if that is what you are hinting at." Natalya muttered, and aimed her mother a glare. "I can think of much nicer things to look at over a baby not even four minutes old and a sister with the most swollen tits one could lay eyes on." 

"Lovely way of phrasing things." Her mother snapped, before slamming the door. In the near distance, the screams of a crying baby could be heard. Natalya wrinkled her nose.

This was hardly the dream life. The cottage was cramped and old, the people here dull, the future unpromising. Natalya relished the mindset she'd had at seventeen, the mindset that she would achieve and soar to new heights. Likely story.

Less than two minutes later, her door was open again and her mother demanding and she was being forcibly shepherded down to the room with the baby, in which a midwife was smoking and Kat smiling. Natalya stood with folded arms.

"It's a baby."

"It's your nephew." Kat corrected softly. That was Kat - soft.

"Yes. It's a baby." 

"He's the most precious thing I have ever met." Kat whispered, stroking her son's cheeks. 

"Sweet." Natalya smiled, and started to exit.

"No, hold him. He's as soft as a kitten. No - softer. Made of feathers." She added.

Natalya extended her arms hesitantly, and Kat passed the baby. Natalya snorted, but didn't mind holding him.

"His skin feels a little less soft than feathers to me. But he's handsome." She complimented.

"And he is called Ivan. It was the only choice." 

"You should hope he doesn't have a nose like Ivan before him." Natalya referred to her brother's discerning feature.

Natalya returned the baby, and kissed her sister's forehead, before returning to her room. It was nice to have the baby around she supposed, but life here was simply so mundane that it stung that the baby was the only sign of a broken normality, a little bit of change. She was young, for goodness' sake. And here she was in a village no outsider could remember the name of, waiting until she inevitably was in the same forsaken situation as Kat. That was not what she wanted.

She could go to Paris. Or Belarus. Or maybe America. Or London. She had the courage, could pool together sufficient funds. But there was nothing else she was good at except for dance, and that was but a forgotten path.

The only people she had left in the world was her mother, her sister, she supposed the baby too, and maybe.. just maybe Francine still. Maybe Lovino. But it had been so long. If her brother still lived, she envisaged following him around, he would have graduated this summer, and she could have joined him in his endeavours. But he did not, and that was it.

Stop feeling so listless. She snapped to herself, before closing her curtains, darkening the room completely.

Maybe the war would end soon and she could think of something new.

****

"Beilschmidt! Reload! Your ammunition is low!" Gilbert - Juls - whatever pulled down her helmet and fumbled with her gun. Her uniform was more mud coloured than green, and she struggled to see in the pelting rain. She stampeded through the mud, and reloaded, crouching down as low as she could as the battle raged on either side of her. 

The sound of gunfire echoed around her form, and her ears rang and her head throbbed. Blood stained the ground. She furrowed her brow in concentration, aiming her gun as best as she could, targeting the attackers, the British. 

Just shoot, she told herself - you're not in a sweet shop, you don't need to pick one. Just see them as an assortment needing only to be obliterated. Normally she never dithered. She shot and she killed and she injured and she stunned alongside her squadron. But somehow not today.

She watched the newest recruits, barely more than children plough into the battle, shooting blindly and unfearingly. She felt tense, she felt rigid. Her heart starting thumping.

"Beilschmidt, shoot!" 

She pulled the trigger, the rain snaking down the rim of her helmet. She heard the bang, the bang of her own gun and of her peers. She froze. Barely metres ahead of her was a British soldier, his own helmet almost disguising him. But yet his hair hushed out from under it - clearly it was not sheerly shorn. And his eyes were like emerald. 

Arthur Kirkland. Unmistakably Arthur.

"Shoot, damnit Beilschmidt, attack!" She felt her muscles almost lock.

Paralysed with a racing mind and conflicting ethics she pulled away, and Arthur lowered his gun, and sent her look of mercy.

So,ething about Juls felt adverse to that look.

The sound of gunfire was rife and she panicked and she shot, and Arthur's eyes looked like those of a deer in the headlights.

And he fell limp to the muddy ground and she screamed.


	20. Chapter 20 - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tying up the strings of the story now. This and the next chapter will be longer than their precedents.

26th August 1944, Paris. 

 

"I can't quite believe it." Francine whispered to Sophia, who smiled and nodded with vigour. The city was alive. The city was smiling, beaming even. The city was triumphant.

Paris was liberated. Seized by the Germans four years ago, it was strange to think that from yesterday hence, the city was governed by itself, freedom of speech could be once again employed, the city was itself again. Or so it was nice to believe.

The war, in theory, continued. But Paris' victory seemed, very briefly, a taste of something new, a taste of hope.

The two girls stood in the crowds that bordered the Champs-Élysées, seemingly an age older than they had been when Paris was occupied first. The two were twenty three, almost twenty four, success had been granted to them in tantalisingly small doses. Paris was where they had always - or what appeared to be always - called and revered as home. And with the renowned vigour that surged through the city, it felt more like a part of them than ever before.

The parades clattered past the two who spectated eagerly, watching wide-eyed the billowing of the French flag, the military personnel marching, the jubilant dances of the young children forefronting the procession. For now at least, Paris was free and the war seemed insignificant if just for a day.

As the audiences began to take their leave, Sophia turned to Francine, and the two sighed. 

"At least everyone's morales are up." Francine murmured, and Sophia nodded. "But everything is so different now. Do you know, it was six years ago practically to the date that I.. that I first set foot in Paris?"

Francine's jaw dropped. "It was never! Are you telling me it has been that long?" She faltered and her eyes widened. She remembered being so young, hardly seventeen. She remembered being a child. She remembered warm Antonio and sarcastic Lovino and his deli - now a sad derelict building untouched in four years, the roses wilted, the street it was situated on scarily lulled. She remembered cold Natalya, so promising, so talented. Natalya had been gone a long time. It was frightening to think that the girl who had once seemed so young to Francine would be past twenty. She remembered Juls, though only just. She remembered her shiny, ethereal hair, her mischevious eyes, the way she never once failed to make Sophia groan with what she said. And she remembered Ivan, scholarly and warm, caring indefinitely about Natalya. She remembered with a searing pain in her chest his death. She remembered Sophia, how she had seemed so plain and prim at first, but once unlocked, was more than just a skilful pianist and composer. She was Francine's best friend and the only constant.

She remembered Arthur. His messy blond hair, his freckles, his smile and his eyes. The chilling emerald gaze. She remembered how he was always reading, how his jumpers were always oversized, how he always had something intelligent to say. She loved him. Still she loved him. She remembered when he had gone, how long ago was it now? Three years ago? More? Too long. She'd been impressed by his bravery but she had become reckless. She was unworthy of his adoration. There had been no letters in the past two years, but no telegrams either, so she supposed he lived. A part of her believed he would return to Paris, his heart still firmly hers. She fought with this idea though, why would he? But he was oblivious to what she had done in her youth, he had promised to see her again. There was no reason to believe he would break his promise.

"I can't really find it in me to think about the past." Sophia whispered. "It's too long ago and yet it is too fresh." She added, as Francine and her began to leave the Champs-Élysées. 

"Understandable. It's okay to feel that way." Francine responded. 

"I miss everyone. I miss that first year so much." Sophia continued. She evaluated herself. Still a university student, who occasionally played piano at dance halls or bars in the evening, though work was not constant. She missed composing, but every piece she wrote ended up a sorrowful ostinato. Her creativity was stunted.

Francine was off on injury, but she was a ballerina. She had got what she wanted. Why had Sophia been incompetent? Music was all she cared about and her studies meant nothing to her.

In the far distance, the French flags decorated the skies, the spirits high. Sophia turned away and smiled at Francine.

"We will end up alright." Francine added.

Easy for you to say, Sophia remarked mentally. Francine would end up how she hoped to end up, with love - although from who it was uncertain - and ballet as her life. Sophia would be disjointed, working like so many did in a job that bored her and left her uncaptivated, and leaving her mind riddled with feelings of regret that she did not try harder, did not take the path she wanted. 

She realised now she had only loved one person, and it was clear that that person had not felt the same way.

****

November, 1944. Italy.

It was a strangely warm night in Tuscany, but it's weather did fluctuate so much in the Autumn. Lovino lay in the hammock at the back of the family's garden, which was verdant and richly lined with trees and lanterns, making it magical. The hammock swayed gently.

"Lovino! Lovino, come inside! It's freezing!" Feliciano called from one of the old yellow arches beneath the veranda that lead inside the house from the back garden. Feliciano was now a young man nearly out of adolescence, twenty, but his head was still amassed with curls, and his grin still childish. He was home from university, at which he studied Biology. Lovino rolled his eyes. 

"You forget I lived in France! This isn't cold." Lovino replied, and Feliciano looked unconvinced. 

"I don't want you getting a chill! I'm making pannetone. Come and help!" He almost whined, and Lovino flipped him off.

"You need to meet my new girlfriend." Feliciano called out again, and Lovino laughed. Feliciano had really become a womaniser, even though he was so 'pure.' His current girlfriend was Sakura Honda, from Japan. Previously, he had dated a girl from Liechtenstein. And when he sauntered into the market plaza, he had countless ladies hanging off of him.

"Is she over?" Lovino called out, and Feliciano nodded, even though he was barely close enough for Lovino to see.

Lovino turned over in the hammock, telling Feliciano via his body language that he was staying out. He himself talked to girls a lot, for all the rumours about his sexuality had flown through the village. Antonio wrote weekly. He visited when he could, and Lovino felt a tug in his stomach whenever he had to leave again, to fight. It made things easier now that Italy was against Germany, France and Italy were allied. He honoured Antonio's courage.

One day Antonio would come back for good. And then Lovino did not know where they would go. Paris?

Really, Lovino was lost. He had no ambition, even though he continued ballet. He was twenty four. Old.

The only time he had direction was with Antonio. But Antonio would come home soon. When the war ended.

It felt like an eternity ago that he had spent lazy days with Antonio at the deli, pestering him and irking him yet in love with him. He sighed as the sunset deepened. Maybe that was what he had to do. Go back to Paris. Suddenly an idea struck him and he sat bolt upright.

**

New York, April 1945.

Unlike anywhere she had previously been to. New York was a breath of fresh air. New York was what she had wanted. And here she was.

Natalya straightened her hair, and tried to smooth out the creases that had gathered in her dress from the trip there. Her eyes were wily, yet curious. She hoped she did not stick out too much, she hoped that her attire was not unfashionable. 

She had travelled light, she carried only a small suitcase, and the shawl that she draped over her shoulders. She knew though, she was a million miles away from all the pretty American girls her age. 

She had to put together a plan. Stay in a hotel room and work until she could buy an apartment - risky. But there was not much choice. She wondered a little why she had waited so long to leave Russia, as the streets of the city invigorated her. At home all there was was a toddler and her mother and sister Kat and her new boyfriend, whom she 'planned to wed.' Likely story.

Restaurants and theatres lined the streets and chatter echoed through the air. Men with suits and girls with flounced skirts were to her left and right. She strained to concentrate on where she was going.

She looked up and studied the skyline - so bursting with lights and billboards, this did not look like a country at war. It was so different. She went as far as to say she liked it.

At last, she entered a hotel that seemed to be in her price range, but did not look dingy at the same time. It looked nice, perhaps not five star, but far better than a grubby attic like what some establishments advertised. The lobby was bright and busy, filled with porters and guests with fake ermine coats and suitcases and Natalya tried not to seek bewildered. She was short and thin and childlike, often a good target.

"How can I help you, ma'am?" The receptionist asked, and Natalya looked surprised. She had become unaccustomed to English recently, but she quickly strung together a coherent response as the keys to a room where given over, and she moved out of the way of the queue. 

"Fine, mom! Bye, mom! I'll be safe, momma." She turned, and to the side of the desk stood a middle aged woman, effortlessly glamorous, and her son(?) who was maybe twenty? in front of her, kitted out in military wear. It was obvious this was one of his visits home - he must be a pretty well ranked officer. 

The son turned round, his cheeks slathered in rouge lipstick from kisses, and he smiled at Natalya whilst ineffectively daubing at the lipstick. Suddenly the rest of the lobby didn't exist. It was solely Natalya and the boy.

"Howdy." He said charmingly, and she jumped. "Oh- hello!" She said, hoping her accent was not as thick as she feared it was. 

"You look lost." He smirked, and for a moment she wondered if she was being taunted. Then she saw the kindness in his eyes.

"I am. I.. you can likely guess I am not from here." She murmured, and he nodded. "You've come to the right place. This is my papa's hotel. I know the streets here like I know my own name. Alfred F. Jones." He said, puffing out his chest a tad.

"What does the F mean?" Natalya asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Pff, funny? Flirtatious? Frantically trying to get my life together? Nah. Means Franklin. Got it from my papa." He said, and Natalya chuckled.

"Let me escort you to your room. Least I can do for a girl like you." He drawled, and she nodded thankfully. 

"What's that supposed to mean? Girl like me?" She questioned, and he chuckled. "I dunno. Hey, what's your name?" 

She paused. "Natalya Arlovsk-- Natalya Braginskya." She answered. She didnt have to use a pretend name any longer. She trusted Alfred somewhat.

"Natalya-Arlovsk-Natalya-Braginskya?" He repeated, butchering her surname. "You Russians are weird." 

"I'm not Russian!" She said indignantly, and he rolled his eyes. "I'm Belarusian. And my name is Natalya A Braginskya." She remarked.

"What does the A mean?" 

"Alfred is an idiot," she smirked, and he smirked too.

He waited a minute to let her into the room, which was rather pretty. Indulgent but functional. She sat down on the bed and stood in the doorframe casually.

"They're the same thing." 

"What are?" Natalya seemed confused.

"Russians and Belarusians." He stated.

"In what world? We're completely different. Different nationalities. Different countries." She tried not to get angry.

"Huh?" He questioned.

"Did you not know that?" She looked shocked.

"So it's like America and Canada." He said after a moment.

"What is?" She countered.

"People mix them up." He shrugged, and let himself into her room, and plonked himself into the armchair.

"My brother is Canadian - half. He says it's better than being American. False." Alfred laughed, and Natalya smiled too. "Which is better? Belarus or Russia?" 

Natalya dithered. "Belarus. So incredibly beautiful." She seemed otherworldly for a minute. Alfred focused on her face, on her soft hair, her pale complexion, her sharply and angular features, her lavender eyes. She was built like an elf.

"Miss Natalya, maybe we could continue this conversation somewhere else? I feel compelled to give you a tour of the city, after all, you are a guest." He said and flashed a smile, and Natalya was entranced again. His lively eyes, his chiselled face, his muscular body visible through his uniform, and his smile which put her at ease instantly.

"Very well, Mister Alfred." She agreed, and extended an arm out towards her, which she interlocked with her own.

Hand holding came later.


	21. Chapter 20 - Part 2

August 1945. France.

Japan had surrendered and the allies had won.

It was hard to say, hard to think about, but it was true. Gloriously true. Had war finally come to a halt in the continent? It was such an alien notion, that the war was finally finished, or was drawing to a close. Victory was the strangest answer.

Processions and parades lined the streets of Paris, and the country rejoiced. So much had been lost. Far too much to compensate. Not enough had been won, but yet now the country had to believe it could rebuild. And it could.

Francine practically ran though the streets, tugging at Sophia's wrist so she ran too. The sky was perfectly azure, the citizens of the city feeling generous and jubilant. It was so different to the Paris they had known of late. 

"We've won! Sophia, we've won!" Francine giggled, like a child, and the two stopped by the banks of the Seine, where other citizens alike gathered round, beaming and crying and celebrating and honouring. It had been turmoil. The war had without a doubt been the most ceaseless period of darkness felt to most youth. But now.. it had ceased.

"Hug me, Sophia! Hug me!" Francine laughed, and Sophia did, however awkwardly. She stood back a little, and watched the young French girl almost flood into tears, completely overrun with emotion. The sun dappled Francine's brown hair and lit up her eyes, and Sophia watched just a moment to revel in Francine's happiness.

What did this mean happened next? Did everyone just go back to being how they were before all this? Did everyone just carry on? It was confusing, and she leaned her weight against a lamp post, sighing. 

"What are you sighing for? We've won a war!" A pedestrian yelled in her ear, though not rudely, and Sophia smiled as well as she could. Be happy.

Did all the men come home now from serving then? Did all the women come home from serving too? Did they just adjust back into everyday life? Seemed like a lot to ask. 

And did Sophia stay in France? She was so conflicted. Maybe she could get a job in Austria, she had just graduated after all. It had been too long since she saw her parents but honestly, she hadn't missed them much.

She was twenty four now, and she had come here at eighteen. She had grown into who she was now from the surly teenager she used to be. She fiddled with the sleeves of her floral blouse, and Francine hugged her again, wrapping her arms round the waist of Sophia's fitted pinafore. She dressed four times her age.

"We need to write to everyone. To Lovino and Antonio. It has been too long! And to Natalya! You know, she's in America, fancy that! She told me in her letter last month." Francine gabbled, and she clasped her hands. "They have to come home to Paris." 

Was Paris home? Sophia debated, because somehow it felt like it was.

****

October, 1945. Germany.

Juls had not slept so well in years.

There had been so much crying when she came home in late 1944 with an injury. At first she had wondered where to go, but she knew she owed it to her parents to return to them. She had been gone for three years. Two in Italy, one fighting. 

She had not even recognised herself when she left the army camps to go to Germany. There was a photo of her from 1938, and you could not compare. In the photo she had hair past her shoulders and a grin on her face and a nice figure and a youthful glow. In the mirrow she, although washed, looked grubby, her hair short and boyish, her eyes darker, her figure muscled but thinner. War did not make her a worse person. Just different. But she wanted to stop being Gilbert Beilschmidt, injured soldier. She wanted to play music, grow her hair, and forget the visions that haunted her of the war.

She had been home ten months, and when she returned, her mother had fainted. She had known who she was.

When both recovered, they talked things out. Her parents were wrong to stop her from leaving Germany again. Juls was wrong for joining the army. Monica continued to fight, ascending the ranks. Neithers' gender was revealed. Her mother looked mystified at that, but sad.

"Your beautiful hair." She said, slipping her fingers through the shorn locks. "It was so silky." She added, and Juls tried to stabilise her emotions.

The injury had not been that great, to say the least. It was in her shoulder, and she had not been able to move it for the best part of two months. It was healing now, but she had decided against returning to the army.

"My daughter is a hero." Her father said when Japan surrendered, and Juls shook her head. "So many people fought. I just survived." She admitted.

"But you - you are a girl!" He said. "It would have been harder for you." He laughed.

Juls dropped the argument. That was what he believed.

But her heart had sung when the war was over in August and then officially in September, not that it should have, because the Germans had failed. The Axis were unsuccessful. But Juls knew, in reflection, that she would have preferred to fight for France. The only reason she had fought at all was to keep her sister safe.

Monica came home in the aftermath, and Juls cried then. Bitterly. She enveloped her sister, her brother, whatever Monica was. Monica had been more than a soldier, however honourable it is to be one. She had received standard field promotion. And Juls was proud.

"You're a better son than you are a daughter." Their mother said, wiping her tears, to Monica, nineteen now. Monica blinked. "Then think of me that way."

Juls was trying to tame her hair, but it was taking a while. She dressed femininely now, but no matter how much she adapted to life, the battlefield was still with her. It was with her at night, when her mind went idle. It lurked behind her. It was in her fearful eyes. She regretted fighting.

Monica struggled over staying in the army, her parents wanted her out of it in spite of her sacrifice in war. Her parents agreed she could become a nurse, and that was it. Juls hoped Monica recognised it was better than nothing.

October was a strange month, the war still fresh in her mind as Juls sat in her garden, contemplating. As soon as she could, she would find Sophia. That she had known she would do for the longest time. That she had wanted to do for the longest time.

Her whitish hair settled by her ears, looking more feminine now. Her figure seemed slightly feminine again too, but Juls had been irreversibly changed by the army in her form.

Part of her still did not believe she had been a soldier.

**

Washington, September 1946. 

"Alfred!"

"Nghh, what?" He stirred sleepily.

"Alfred F for Franklin Jones, look at me." Natalya thrust an oblong shaped parcel at him.

"What is it?" He asked, shaking it. Natalya smiled.

"You're kidding." He suddenly said, getting out of bed in a matter of seconds. "You've done it." He said, hugging her.

"I have." She murmured. He stroked the packaging reverently as she pulled apart - prolonged contact weirded her out. 

The book tipped out of the parcel paper, and Natalya smiled encouragingly at Alfred, who picked it up. His fingers trembled.

"Parisian Summer - Natalya Braginskya." He read out. Sooner or later, he wanted to make that Natalya Jones.

Natalya suddenly swatted at him. "No." She said monosyllabically, and he looked surprised. "How did you know what I was thinking?" 

"You forget I am one with the occult, somewhat," Natalya laughed. "And absolutely no way, you're still a child. What are you, twenty-one?"

"Twenty two!"

"Exactly!"

"Only two years younger than you." He pouted, and she rolled her eyes.

"I love you a lot Alfred, but we are not getting married just yet." She tried to make her word final, which it usually was.

He turned his attention back to the book. It was hers. She had written it, and he found that amazing. He was so fascinated by her. The girl who was once meant to be a prima ballerina had now published a book. 

Natalya hadn't realised her love for writing until she was telling Alfred about the summer she met Lovino and Sophia and everyone in Paris eight years ago. She was telling everything so well Alfred apparently felt he was living vicariously through her past. And so she decided to take influence from that summer and write a story, with altered characters and an altered ending.

It had been an instant success with the publishers.

But now Natalya had a career, and she had ideas galore for new books. If that was, this one took off. It was not in bookshops right now - she launched in next week. In Paris.

And she was incredibly jittery. She had made arrangements via letter to meet with Sophia and Francine, which left left her nervous although excited. 

"It'll be fine." Alfred murmured, and she was thankful for him. For that obnoxious yet sensitive American soldier she had met over a year ago. They had relocated to Washington recently, following a job offer and to live closer to Alfred's brother. It was pleasant enough. 

But Natalya knew she would feel better in Paris. She yearned for it.


	22. Chapter 20 - Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sentimental drabble chapter :) hope you don't mind~

October 1946. Paris. A high end bar.

Sophia sat by herself at the bar, her hair loose. Her glasses were off for once, and she relaxed her hands around a tankard of beer. She dressed in a light printed dress, finally embracing the 40s fashion. The bar thrived, people danced and drank eagerly, made refined conversation, yet she did not belong.

The evening danced around her, and she was lost in her own imagination. Composing had come back to her. She composed all the time in her new apartment, bigger, nicer - she could afford a piano. Working as a curator for an art gallery paid off, and besides, she enjoyed it. She frequently gave talks about the art, plus, it was an elegant job almost tailor made for her. Music was a hobby, and one she intended to take further as she matured. She wanted to be original, and she was still young, too young to properly make music she felt.

She was happy for once. Satisfied. Paris was truly her home and she so wanted her life to be complete here. But for all she was happy, her life was not perfect yet.

One thing was missing.

"Oh my goodness." Came a breathy whisper, and Sophia turned round, nearly falling off of her bar stool.

"Graceful as ever." Came a familiar voice, yet older. She looked up and suddenly her heart felt like stopping.

Julchen Beilschmidt.

For a long time, Sophia had not cried. But she cried then. Her eyes welled up and then she was overrun with ugly, happy tears. 

"I'm here. I'm here." Juls whispered, and she held Sophia close and lifted her off of the had stool. The bar half continued, oblivious, and half spectated. 

"You idiot. You never wrote once." Sophia whispered into Julchen, who cried too. "I know. I couldn't but I should've." She whispered. "You can hate me." Juls added, and Sophia didn't want to let go.

"You were gone for so long. Years. Years, Juls, years." Sophia whispered, still unsure if this was reality. 

"Too long." Juls said decisively. She exhaled, and Sophia studied her. She seemed far older, not that she looked old, she just seemed more.. defined. She looked her age, but she looked like she had experienced a lot. Her hair was cut fashionably short, and secured with a barrette. She dressed in trousers and and a nicely cut blouse, and Sophia bit her lip. She looked wonderful. Completely changed but wonderful.

"I missed you so much. I owe you a lot. I owe you an explanation-"

"Not now."

Juls seemed surprised. But Sophia had said it decisively. Juls in turn looked at Sophia, who had become this pretty, slender, young woman, dressed freshly and with her hair causally framing her face. It suited her. A change from the uptight Sophia she had left seven years ago.

"So. What are you doing with yourself?" Juls asked, sending a look to the person sitting next to Sophia, who quickly ran off allowing Juls to take a seat. 

Sophia shrugged, but then smiled. "Working. Musée d'Orsay. I don't play for work anymore. I did though, when I left the school. I worked at a lovely little restaurant playing for entertainment, then I went to university." She began, and then looked misty eyed. "I spent most of the time with Francine after Lovino and Antonio and Natalya left." 

"I heard about that." Juls put in. She grinned. "Fancy you working at an art gallery. Pompous idiot." 

Sophia dug into Juls' shoulder with her elbow, and suddenly Juls yelped. Sophia looked stricken.

"I.. that area is sensitive. I hurt it." Juls explained, and Sophia looked anxious. 

"What did you do to it?"

Juls debated lying. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. "I got shot." She whispered.

"What?" Sophia's ears must have deceived her.

"I got shot." Juls said through gritted teeth, and Sophia struggled to comprehend.

"Soldiers shot you?"

"Something like that," Juls didn't want to tell Sophia why she was gone. She knew she owed it to Sophia, but like she said - not now.

Sophia dropped it. "I did miss you." She broke the silence between the two but suddenly voices punctuated the air again.

"Ciao, signorinas." Sophia felt her heart jump into her throat. Surely not? Lovino?

When Sophia turned round, standing in front of her was Francine, Lovino, Antonio, Natalya.. and someone she did not recognise. 

"Oh my." She exhaled, and felt weak. This couldn't be. Somehow, Lovino seemed the same. Unruffled, same old, white shirt hanging off of him, same perfectly groomed curls. Antonio seemed the same, but with an eyepatch. Natalya looked older, naturally, but still had the same devilish glance. Sophia could cry.

Antonio enveloped her, and she clung to him. Her face because tear stained, and she wiped her eyes as they pulled apart.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, refusing to believe that they were truly with her.

"It was time we came back." Lovino explained. "France is sort of our home." 

Natalya beamed. "I would love to live here again, but in the meantime-"

The unfamiliar person grinned. "I cannot believe Natalya did not introduce me." He laughed, and Natalya groaned.

"This bastard is Natalya's boyfriend Alfred. American." Lovino commented, and Alfred aimed a punch at his bicep.

"I have known him for an hour and I hate him." Lovino snapped jokingly, and Alfred snorted.

"Pleasure to meet you." Sophia commented, and he stuck out his chest. "You betcha it is." He said confidently, but not actually meaning it.

"We live in Washington now. But I am here to launch my--"

"Her book! She is launching her book!" Alfred cut in, and Sophia looked shocked. Natalya had not gone through with ballet?

Francine gave Sophia a sidelong glance and they chuckled. Juls and Lovino had a long glance at each other before laughing.

"It's been too long, fraulein." Lovino jested, and Juls agreed. She had never realised how much she missed him and couldn't express it.

They relocated to a table and drank and talked and talked more because there weren't enough words to say how much they needed to say. Not enough ways to say what they wanted to.

"Antonio may or may not have bought a restaurant here." Lovino rolled his eyes. "I wonder how long it will take for that to go bankrupt and we escape to Tuscany again." The italian quipped. 

"Harsh." He murmured, and Lovino pulled a face before finishing off his glass of wine. 

"It is going to do well. I plan to make Spanish, French and Italian meals! It is going to be a culinary amalgamation of cultural sublimity." Antonio announced.

"What he said." Lovino said sarcastically, goading the person he loved most more.

"If I can convince Alfred, we would like to live in Paris too. Perhaps in a penthouse." Natalya said wistfully.

"Like we make enough money." Alfred rolled his eyes sceptically.

Natalya tapped her nose. "My book will do well." She said, before downing a shot of vodka. Metal.

For a while, it felt as if there was no one but the group. They were back together. Their lives had changed but they had not.

As the group left reluctantly later on, Francine smiled weakly. It just seemed that everyone had someone. Antonio and Lovino. Alfred and Natalya. Sophia and Julchen.

Francine and Matthew. Francine and Arthur. Neither had worked out.

She turned to leave the bar separately, to go on its balcony for two moments. The view of the city of love stretched in front of her, dotted with lights and stars.

"Francine - I'm so-"

She knew who it was and her heart thumped and he wrapped his arms round her and held her close and she looked up and there he was and he was the same, his hair as messy, eyes as incredibly, freckles as lively, face as handsome.

Arthur.

"-I'm so sorry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is finally done.... ahh this took so long. Like, months? But I am kind of proud. Not of the final chapters because they are rushed, but of the entire piece perhaps. I hope you like it. Thank you for all your support, it is unfathomably amazing.


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